Language Standardization Quotes

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it.

The one thing - apart from assumptions about German - that I have to challenge frequently is people assuming that lexicographers are fierce protectors of the language when in fact our job is not to put a lid on it.

English should be acknowledged once and for all as the official language of the United States.

Insist on one language. English for all Americans.

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

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.

The English language is the law of the people of the United States.

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.

I do believe that there are African Americans who have thick accents. My mom has a thick accent; my relatives have thick accents. But sometimes you have to adjust when you go into the world of film, TV, theatre, in order to make it accessible to people.

This evolution may compromise Java's claim of being simpler than C++, but my guess is that the effort will make Java a better language than it is today.

Part of what makes a language 'alive' is its constant evolution. I would hate to think Britain would ever emulate France, where they actually have a learned faculty whose job it is to attempt to prevent the incursion of foreign words into the language. I love editing Harry with Arthur Levine, my American editor-the differences between 'British English' (of which there must be at least 200 versions) and 'American English' (ditto!) are a source of constant interest and amusement to me.

I have never said, as is sometimes believed, or even suggested that lower-class children should not learn the so-called educated norm of the Portuguese language of Brazil. What I have said is that the problems of language always involve ideological questions and, along with them, questions of power.

For Cantonese - because there's no standardized pinyin system - I have to have someone read it to me, and then I rewrite the whole script in my own Cantonese pinyin.

The spirit of logical analysis should in practice blend with the practical pressure for the adoption of some form of international language, but it should not allow itself to be stampeded by it.

I‘ve said it once and I will say it again, why can‘t everyone just speak English? The Americans give it a bit of a go — why can‘t other nations?

An English tongue, if refined to a certain standard, might perhaps be fixed forever.

It was decided almost two hundred years ago that English should be the language spoken in the United States. It is not known, however, why this decision has not been carried out.

Of the many unforeseen consequences of typography, the emergence of nationalism is, perhaps, the most familiar

Bottom line: this is the United States. And we speak English here.

We can only use British actors because everybody's got to talk exactly the same.

With all the divisive forces tearing at our country, we need the glue of language to help hold us together. If we want to ensure that all our children have the same opportunities in life, alternative language education should stop and English should be acknowledged once and for all as the official language of the United States.

The American language should be descriptive rather than proscriptive.

To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.

The most important fact of the 20th century will be that the English and the Americans speak the same language.

Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries - eventually - reflect popular choices.