Language Dominance Quotes

France used to have the ability to inspire princes and kings, send her philosophers to the courts of Europe whose elites spoke our language… now no one listens to her anymore and the universe turns without her …

I am under the spell of language, which has ruled me since I was 10.

English, once accepted as an international language, is no more secure than French has proved to be as the one and only accepted language of diplomacy or as Latin has proved to be as the international language of science.

Throughout the European Middle Ages and Renaissance, Latin was the language of learning and international communication. But in the early modern period, it was gradually displaced by French. By the eighteenth century, all the world - or at least all of Europe - aspired to be Parisian.

The issue of American world cultural dominance is moot. All the international debates on the issue seem to be held in English.

Europeans hate the way Americans talk. They think we're loud and uncouth and they don't like our jokes, except for Michael Moore. Plus, they resent the fact that they've had to learn our language because if they didn't we wouldn't buy their stupid metric widgets or visit their overpriced ruins.

There are reasons for believing that the English increase will far surpass others, and that the diffusion of the United States will ultimately produce the general population of America.

A feature of English that makes it different compared with all other languages is its global spread.

The language we share is at the core of our identity as citizens, and our ticket to full participation in American political life. We can speak any language we want at the dinner table, but English is the language of public discourse, or the marketplace and of the voting booth.

English is the largest of human tongues, with several times the vocabulary of the second largest language -- this alone made it inevitable that English would eventually become, as it did, the lingua franca of this planet, for it is thereby the richest and most flexible -- despite its barbaric accretions . . . or, I should say, because of its barbaric accretions. English swallows up anything that comes its way, makes English out of it.

If the French were really intelligent, they'd speak English.

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.

Standard English is very imperialistic, controlled, and precise; it's not got a lot of funk or soul to it.

The psychology of a language which, in one way or another, is imposed upon one because of factors beyond one's control, is very different from the psychology of a language which one accepts of one's free will.

The attitude of independence toward a constructed language which all national speakers must adopt is really a great advantage, because it tends to make man see himself as the master of language instead of its obedient servant.

More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to.

'Marielena' was a wonderful experience that so many people still remember today. It challenged me to practice my Spanish. Having been born and raised in Miami, English was very much my dominant language!

I hate all that nonsense about not touching the colonialists' language. All that about it being corrupting and belonging to the master and making you Caliban. That thinking just denies you an outlet. You deny everything that is great from a language, whether it is Conrad or Shakespeare.

Why does there exist a global American entertainment industry, but there isn't an equivalent coming from France or Italy? This is the case simply because the English language opens the whole world to the American cinema.

The advance of standard English culture was less assisted by government policy than by the sheer weight, wealth, and number of England's well-established cultural institutions.

My plea is for banishing the English language as a cultural usurper, as we successfully banished the political rule of the English usurper.

Through my youth, there was imposed on us a culture relentlessly English. English books were all you could buy; English television filled our screens, and in consequence, England seemed to matter in a way that our world didn't.

English is a second language in most of the educated sectors of Europe and much of the world. But maybe in the future Chinese will be. But I doubt that national languages will disappear. In fact, to some extent they're becoming more diverse, like in Europe.

My English is actually getting worse. We talk Spanish at home and switch to English only when we need it. Like when we go to the bank to get some money.

The teachers tried everything, even pleading, but Tomas was in the habit of addressing them only in Latin, a language he spoke with papal fluency and in which he did not stammer. Sooner or later they all resigned in despair, fearing he might be possessed: he might be spouting demonic instructions in Aramaic at them, for all they knew.