“Cases where several nations speak the same language are treated in linguistics as pluricentric languages.”

“After all, when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same language even when they speak the same language?”

“The Germans and I no longer speak the same language.”

“Money speaks sense in a language all nations understand.”

“Linguistic accommodation as well. Are they speaking my language or am I speaking theirs? I can never know: the transaction cannot watch itself being transacted.”

“As a linguist, I don't think of Ada as a big language. Now, English and Japanese, those are big languages. Ada is just a medium-sized language.”

“Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language.”

“The aim of linguistics is to go beyond the study of individual languages to determine what the universal properties of language are, and to establish a ‘universal grammar’ that would account for the range of linguistic variation that is humanly possible.”

“Learn a language of another country and then you can go to that country: a place where the problems of your family will not follow. A language they do not speak.”

“Europe is divided by the walls of 30 languages. Fortunately, among these national languages, around 10,000 words of Greek and Latin origin are common. This precious linguistic treasure ought to be used maximally without mutilating one single word or inventing others.”