Language Quote by George Steiner

“A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group cooperates.”

— Bernard Bloch and George L Trager

There are all kinds of symbols. Verbal language is only one. Sometimes by opening our mouths, we make dreadful errors. It's often so much…

— Leo Buscaglia

As our larynxes descended, we were able to make sounds with our mouths in new and far more expressive ways. Verbal language soon overtook…

— Jon Stewart

My voice speaking is a monkey's mouth making little mouth noises that are carrying agree-upon meaning, and it is meaning that matters. Without the…

— Terence McKenna

I am spoken to not in words, which come to me quaint and veiled, but in signs, in conformations of face and hands, in…

— J. M. Coetzee

“The oralists believe in speaking and lipreading without ever signing; and the manualists are pro-signing in American Sign Language (ASL).”

— Lou Ann Walker

The voice is a human sound which nothing inanimate can perfectly imitate. It has an authority and an insinuating property which writing lacks. It…

— Joseph Joubert

“Language signifies when instead of copying thought it lets itself be taken apart and put together again by thought. Language bears the sense of…

— Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.

— Noam Chomsky

When we listen to improvisational jazz, or solo classical violinists, the way they phrase and inflect melodies feels vocal, like they’re talking to us.…

— Bobby McFerrin

“The elements of voice and style are braided together like twine, consisting of these attempts to copy other artists, or an instrument, or even…

— Linda Ronstadt

“It’s often thought that the only function of pronunciation is to facilitate intelligibility; but it is also there to express personal or group identity.”

— David Crystal