Jezička mreža Verbalisti
The Importance of Learning a Foreign Language
“He who does not know any foreign languages does not know his own.”
Goethe, (1749-1832)
“A different language is a different vision of life.”
Federico Fellini, Italian film director
“The limits of my language are the limits of my universe.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein
“Different languages protect and nourish the growth of different cultures, where different pathways of human knowledge can be discovered. They certainly make life richer for those who know more than one of them.”
Nicholas Ostler, Empires of the Word
“Language is our mother, we absorb it with our mother’s milk. Language is our oxygen, our chlorophyll. We are inseparable from our language. Language is inside of us. It’s in our heads, but also our hands, our sexuality, our bodies. Ripping our language from us is like ripping out half a pound of flesh.”
Bernard Pivot
“Poetry is what gets lost in translation.”
Robert Frost, American poet
“The world is a mosaic of visions and each vision is encapsulated by a language… every time a language is lost, one vision of the world disappears.”
Professor David Crystal, British linguist, honorary professor, University of Wales, author of “The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language”
“A person’s humanity is measured by the number of languages he speaks.”
Slavic proverb
“English is not the world language, but broken English is.”
A proverb from Internet
“If you put yourself into the state of mind of Europe in the 15th century, Latin has a very beautiful future ahead of it…
… If, on the other hand, you put yourself into the state of mind of the world today, English has a very beautiful future ahead of it.”
Nicholas Ostler, Empires of the Word
“Everywhere, our language is shedding tears
Because its children are turning away from it
Leaving it alone with its heavy burden”
Poem in Ouolof (Senegal) Useyno Gey Cosaan
“My language, my precious possession
My language, the object of my affection
My language, my dear art”
Maori poster (New Zealand)
“If Guarani is lost, who will pray that the world will not also be lost?”
Guarani proverb (Paraguay)