Hisham Matar Quotes

The very special place that a language occupies among institutions is undeniable, but there is much more to be said-, a comparison would tend rather to bring out the differences.

The language of my books has shaped me as a man.

English is my language because of the history, and what I try to do - and I did that in 'Carpentaria' in particular - is to write in the way we tell stories and in the voice of our own people and our own way of speaking.

Speaking, writing, and signing are the three ways in which a language lives and breathes. They are the three mediums through which a language is passed on from one generation to the next.

The best time to catch tribal jargon is when it's not looking.

For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.

I wasn't aware that 'House on Mango Street' was so influenced by Spanish until after I finished.

It is my great good luck the words I use are English words, which means I live in a very old nation of open borders; a rich, deep, multi-layered, promiscuous universe, infused with Latin, German, French, Greek, Arabic and countless other tongues.

Language also encodes our past. We want to know who we are. To know who we are, we have to know who we used to be. Consequently, our literature, written in the past, anchors us in that past.

In antiquity, there were three regions in southern Europe: Greece, Rome, and Ilyria. Albanian is the only survivor of the Ilyrian languages. That is why it has always intrigued the great linguists of the past.

In general, every country has the language it deserves.

As our language wanes and dies, the golden legends of the far-off centuries fade and pass away. No one sees their influence upon culture; no one sees their educational power.

History does not merely touch on language, but takes place in it.

Language is an archaeological vehicle... the language we speak is a whole palimpsest of human effort and history.

In Israel, the role of the writer is dictated by the language in which you write. Writers see themselves as cultural prophets.

There is no such thing as an ugly language. Today I hear every language as if it were the only one, and when I hear of one that is dying, it overwhelms me as though it were the death of the earth.

I still keep my accent.

English is necessary as at present original works of science are in English. I believe that in two decades times original works of science will start coming out in our languages. Then we can move over like the Japanese.

There is a pride in speaking this language.

All languages had their birth, their apogee and decline.

Our language is the reflection of ourselves. A language is an exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers.

It is useful to the historian, among others, to be able to see the commonest forms of different phenomena, whether phonetic, morphological or other, and how language lives, carries on and changes over time.

I have a high regard for Native languages and the pivotal role they have played in our nation's history.

I ascribe a basic importance to the phenomenon of language. To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization.

If you talk about language in the Caribbean, you must relate it to history.