“Language is a system of signs that express ideas, and is therefore comparable to a system of writing, the alphabet of deaf-mutes, symbolic rites, polite formulas, military signals, etc. But it is the most important of all these systems.”

—  Ferdinand de Saussure, book Course in General Linguistics

Source: Cours de linguistique générale (1916), p. 16 ; Partly cited in; Geza Revesz, The Origins and Prehistory of Language, London 1956. p. 126

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Ferdinand de Saussure17
Swiss linguist 1857–1913

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