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Noam Chomsky Quotes about Language

All Noam Chomsky Quotes Abuse Achievement Acting Activism Advertising Age Alcohol Anarchy Apathy Arguing Army Assumption Atheism Atheist Attitude Authority Belief Biology Capitalism Challenges Character Children Choices Church Clinton College Commitment Communication Community Conformity Country Creation Creativity Crime Criticism Culture Debate Democracy Desire Devil Dictatorship Dignity Doubt Earth Eating Economics Economy Education Effort Energy Enlightenment Environment Evil Exercise Expectations Fascism Fate Feelings Fighting Focus Free Market Free Trade Freedom Freedom Of Speech Fringe Giving Global Warming Gold Google Great Depression Greek Growing Up Growth Hard Work Hate Hatred Health Care Home Honesty Honor House Human Nature Ignorance Independence Inspirational Integrity Internet Judging Justice Killing Labor Labour Language quotes Latin Leaving Liberty Listening Loss Lying Memories Military Navy North Korea Office Opportunity Optimism Overcoming Past Peace Perception Personality Philosophy Planning Police Politics Popular Culture Power Progress Propaganda Protest Psychology Purpose Quality Racism Reading Reality Recognition Reflection Responsibility Revolution Rhetoric Risk Running Sailing School Selling September 11 Slavery Socialism Society Speculation Speed Sports Struggle Students Study Style Suffering Survival Syria Taxes Teaching Technology Terrorism Tobacco Today Trade Tradition Tragedy Training Truth Tyranny Understanding Vietnam War Violence Voting Waiting Wall War Water Wealth Welfare Winning Winter Worry Worship Writing

Language etches the grooves through which your thoughts must flow.

Language etches the grooves through which your thoughts must flow.

Flow, Language, Groove

Human language is nothing like the signalling systems of other animals.

Animal, Language, Humans

Source: libcom.org

It's perfectly obvious that there is some genetic factor that distinguishes humans from other animals and that it is language-specific. The theory of that genetic component, whatever it turns out to be, is what is called universal grammar.

Animal, Language, Theory

By a generative grammar I mean simply a system of rules that in some explicit and well-defined way assigns structural descriptions to sentences. Obviously, every speaker of a language has mastered and internalized a generative grammar that expresses his knowledge of his language. This is not to say that he is aware of the rules of the grammar or even that he can become aware of them, or that his statements about his intuitive knowledge of the language are necessarily accurate.

Mean, Way, Language

Language is a weapon of politicians, but language is a weapon in much of human affairs.

Weapons, Language, Affair

The syntactic component of a grammar must specify, for each sentence, a deep structure that determines its semantic interpretationand a surface structure that determines its phonetic interpretation.

Language, Interpretation, Grammar

Noam Chomsky (2014). “Aspects of the Theory of Syntax”, p.15, MIT Press

Plainly, children learn their language. I don't speak Swahili. And it cannot be that my language is 'an innate property of our brain.' Otherwise I would have been genetically programmed to speak (some variety of) English.

Children, Brain, Language

Source: libcom.org

There is a kind of nonlinguistic thought going on which we are trying to represent in language, and we know that sometimes we fail.

Trying, Language, Kind

Source: chomsky.info

It's as if we're higher apes who had a language faculty inserted.

Apes, Language, Faculty

From now on I will consider a language to be a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out ofa finite set of elements. All natural languages in their spoken or written form are languages in this sense.

Elements, Language, Infinite

Noam Chomsky (2002). “Syntactic Structures”, p.13, Walter de Gruyter

The structure of language determines not only thought, but reality itself.

Reality, Language, Structure

Of course language arose in a Darwinian biological world, because that's all there is, but that world relates only superficially to the pop-biology that circulates informally.

World, Language, Biology

Source: libcom.org

Selfish-gene theory tells us nothing about the value of interacting through language.

Selfish, Language, Genes

Source: libcom.org

Welsh is now almost a national language in Wales. The Scottish dialects are reviving to some extent. I don't think it's a major thing, but it's there, and it's happening elsewhere.

Thinking, Dialect, Language

Source: brightestyoungthings.com

It's true that language is in a sense linear but that is as obvious as perceptual space is three-dimensional.

Space, Three, Language

Source: chomsky.info

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