Elias Canetti Quotes

It's haunting to realize that half of the languages of the world are teetering on the brink of extinction.

There is a wealth of readership for regional language literature in India that is not given importance. We must give respect to our own languages.

He who does not love his own language is worse than an animal and smelly fish.

What could be more lonely than to be enveloped in silence, to be the last of your people to speak your native tongue, to have no way to pass on the wisdom of the elders, to anticipate the promise of the children. This tragic fate is indeed the plight of someone somewhere roughly every two weeks.

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

I do not share the wish to see my language dead and decently buried.

Every two weeks, a language dies. The world is diminished when it loses its human sayings, just as when it loses its diversity of plants and beasts.

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.

I still keep my accent.

I am critical of the parochial understanding of the Francophone movement and feel that it is used as a justification for not learning the language of the “other”. Those who respect the “other” are those who know them, and those who reject the language of the “other” are at a disadvantage. Learning the language of the “other” does not contradict our rejection of the dominance of their language, which is quite valid in my opinion.

Languages like English, Spanish, and Chinese are healthy languages. They exist in spoken, written, and signed forms, and they're used by hundreds of millions of people all over the world. But most of the 6,000 or so of the world's languages aren't in such a healthy state.

The death of a language. The word has the same kind of reluctant resonance as it has when we talk about the death of a person. And indeed, that's how it should be. For that's how it is. A language dies only when the last person who speaks it dies.

Languages and cultures are disappearing at an enormously fast rate, and many of them are in Canada. These are extreme examples of removal of freedom of expression - to actually lose a language and the ability to express that culture.

If I could talk in only one language for the rest of my life, it'd be Tamil.

Just because I take my music international doesn't mean I have to sing in English. I will continue to sing in Punjabi, Hindi, Gujarati, and Tamil. I want to represent my own country through its own languages.

I want to live in a Britain whose residents are determined to speak English.

One thing I wish I'd been told in school is that my language is valid.

After doing the Bengali 'Antar Mahal,' I felt I should work with all Indian languages.

Whether the film is a Hindi film or in a South Indian language, I don't think it matters.

Living freely means being able to freely communicate in your native language and to be guided by the 10th article of the constitution, which defines Ukrainian as the only state language and guarantees the unhindered development of Russian and all the other languages.

The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.

European languages must not be considered diamonds displayed under a glass ball, dazzling us with their brilliance.

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

It is an absolute privilege to be able to speak another language and have it be something you grew up with. I think it's a very important thing and I think that everywhere else in the world people speak more than one language.

Despite overwhelming support for the United States to adopt English as its official language, we have still not taken that important step.