Behave Quote by Arika Okrent
“The job of the linguist, like that of the biologist or the botanist, is not to tell us how nature should behave, or what its creations should look like, but to describe those creations in all their messy glory and try to figure out what they can teach us about life, the world, and, especially in the case of linguistics, the workings of the human mind.”
About This Quote
Source Book: The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, 1994
Linguists aim to describe language as it is, not prescribe how it should be, using its complexity to learn about life and the mind.
In simple terms: Describe language to learn about mind and world.
Key Takeaway
Observe and document language without bias.
Themes
language
science
observation
mind
nature
Mood
curious
analytical
Type
academic
reflective
When to use this quote
- academic research
- fieldwork
- education
- public outreach
Key Concepts
linguistics
epistemology
complexity
Questions to Reflect On
- How does describing language reveal human cognition?
- What biases affect linguistic description?
A Different Perspective
Descriptions may miss hidden patterns or cultural nuances.
![“I personally never expected anything of Obama, and wrote about it before the 2008 primaries. I thought it was smoke and mirrors [...] I don't usually admire Sarah Palin, but when she was making fun of this 'hopey changey' stuff, she was right, there was nothing there. And it was understood by the…” quote by Noam Chomsky](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/c77/noam-chomsky-42_chomsky_i-personally-never-expected-anything-of_949949.jpg)
