Anyone interested in language ends up writing about the sociological issues around it. — David Crystal About Copy Share Image
At any one time language is a kaleidoscope of styles, genres and dialects. — David Crystal Dialect Copy Share Image
It took three years to put Shakespeare's words together, there were a lot of words to be studied and a lot of… — David Crystal Language Copy Share Image
Although many texters enjoy breaking linguistic rules, they also know they need to be understood. — David Crystal Enjoy Copy Share Image
Texting has added a new dimension to language use, but its long-term impact is negligible. It is not a disaster. — David Crystal Dimensions Copy Share Image
Every usage, no matter how bizarre or nonstandard, fascinates me, as it tells me something about the way language is evolving. — David Crystal Evolving Copy Share Image
Everybody wants to say who they are and where they're from. And the easiest and cheapest and most universal way of doing… — David Crystal Everybody Copy Share Image
Language itself changes slowly but the internet has speeded up the process of those changes so you notice them more quickly. — David Crystal Change Copy Share Image
Academics don't normally manage to alter people's way of thinking through their strength of argument. — David Crystal Argument Copy Share Image
We are rearing a generation of kids who are more equitable and more understanding about the existence of language variety and why… — David Crystal Generation Copy Share Image
The ethos of 50 years ago was that there was one kind of English that was right and everything else was wrong;… — David Crystal Ethos Copy Share Image
I don't have any particular desire to see words making a comeback. They are of their era, after all, and that is… — David Crystal Comeback Copy Share Image
One of the places the full stop is really being revised in a really fundamental way is on the Internet. You look… — David Crystal Communication Copy Share Image
You don't usually get a compound word where the first part is a slang thing and the second part is a rather… — David Crystal Language Copy Share Image
The main effect of the Internet on language has been to increase the expressive richness of language, providing the language with a… — David Crystal Increase Copy Share Image
There's an old little jingle: 'The chief use of slang is to show that you're one of the gang.' What that means… — David Crystal Gang Copy Share Image
How do you spell the name of the Irish prime minister? It sounds like 'teeshuck', but we spell it 'taoiseach.' We respect… — David Crystal Irish Copy Share Image
Language has no independent existence apart from the people who use it. It is not an end in itself; it is a… — David Crystal End Copy Share Image
“Here are three elements we often see in town names: If a town ends in “-by”, it was originally a farmstead or… — David Crystal Language Copy Share Image
“Intonation is the use of pitch to convey meaning in a language. It has been described as the music or melody of… — David Crystal Communication Copy Share Image
Text messaging is just the most recent focus of people's anxiety; what people are really worried about is a new generation gaining… — David Crystal Anxiety Copy Share Image
In effect we are, bending and breaking the rules of the language. And if someone were to ask why we do it,… — David Crystal Answers Copy Share Image
The one thing about internet language, people join it, and what quickly evolves is an 'internet dialect,' as it were. — David Crystal About Copy Share Image
The death of a language. The word has the same kind of reluctant resonance as it has when we talk about the… — David Crystal Death Copy Share Image
Of all the mediums that influence language, I think film is the one that has the most effect. Not so much from… — David Crystal Cinema Copy Share Image
Speaking, writing, and signing are the three ways in which a language lives and breathes. They are the three mediums through which… — David Crystal Generation Copy Share Image
Languages like English, Spanish, and Chinese are healthy languages. They exist in spoken, written, and signed forms, and they're used by hundreds… — David Crystal Exist Copy Share Image
Enshrined in a language is the whole of a community's history and a large part of its cultural identity. The world is… — David Crystal Community Copy Share Image
A community, once it realises that its language is in danger, can get its act together and introduce measures which can genuinely… — David Crystal Aboriginal Copy Share Image
“The end of his great project was in sight, and then he encountered the verb take, with its remarkable number of senses.… — David Crystal Verbs Copy Share Image
Likewise, there is no evidence that texting teaches people to spell badly: rather, research shows that those kids who text frequently are… — David Crystal Badly Copy Share Image
There's nothing unusual about a single language dying. But what's going on today is extraordinary when we compare the situation to what… — David Crystal Language Copy Share Image
Vocabulary is a matter of word-building as well as word-using. — David Crystal Building Copy Share Image
The Internet offers endangered languages a chance to have a public voice in a way that would not have been possible before. — David Crystal Chance Copy Share Image
“There is little scientific data on the point, but evidently people do speak to themselves.” — David Crystal Science Copy Share Image
You don't talk to a linguist without having what you say taken down and used in evidence against you at some point… — David Crystal Against Copy Share Image
A feature of English that makes it different compared with all other languages is its global spread. — David Crystal Different Copy Share Image
As I get older and I get a few more years experience I become more like Dad, you know, King Lear. — David Crystal Dad Copy Share Image
