Words borrowed of Antiquity do lend a kind of Majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes. For they have the authority of years, and out of their intermission do win to themselves a kind of grace-like newness. But the eldest of the present, and newest of the past Language, is the best. — Ben Jonson, .
Despite the great wealth of words which European languages possess, the thinker finds himself often at a loss for an expression exactly suited to his conception, for want of which he is unable to make himself intelligible either to others or to himself.
— Kant, Transcendental Dialectic.
'Educating Rita': A play written by Willy Russell in the eighties and 'Pygmalion': A play written by Bernard Shaw in 1914 both effectively explore significant social issues and relate to significant themes.
Society was changing at an alarming rate and Shaw wanted to make sure his audiences were pushed into thinking about issues such as imminent feminism, the class system and the importance in the way we speak....
Language is not merely a means of expression and communication; it is an instrument of experiencing, thinking, and feeling ... Our ideas and experiences are not independent of language; they are all integral parts of the same pattern, the warp and woof of the same texture. We do not first have thoughts, ideas, feelings, and then put them into a verbal framework. We think in words, by means of words. Language and experience are inextricably interwoven, and the awareness of one awakens the other. Words and idioms are as indispensible to our thoughts and experiences as are colors and tints to a painting. — William Chomsky (died 1977), (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1957), p.3.
Der mensch lebt mit den Gegenständen hauptsächlich, ja ... sogar ausschliesslich so, wie die Sprache sie ihm zuführt. [Man lives with the world about him principally, indeed ... exclusively, as language presents it to him]. — Wilhelm von Humboldt, 1767-1835.
She writes that “feminine pleasure has to remain inarticulate in language, in its own language, if it is not to threaten the underpinnings of logical operations” and, because of this, “what is most strictly forbidden to women today is that they should attempt to express their own pleasure” (796)....
Language is the dress of thought; and as the noblest mien, or most graceful action, would be degraded and obscured by a garb appropriated to the gross employments of rustics or mechanics, so the most heroic sentiments will lose their efficacy, and the most splendid ideas drop their magnificence, if they are conveyed by words used commonly upon low and trivial occasions, debased by vulgar mouths, and contaminated by inelegant applications. Truth indeed is always truth, and reason is always reason; they have an intrinsic and unalterable value, and constitute that intellectual gold which defies destruction: but gold may be so concealed in baser matter, that only a chemist can recover it; sense may be so hidden in unrefined and plebeian words, that none but philosophers can distinguish it; and both may be so buried in impurities, as not to pay the cost of their extraction. — Samuel Johnson, "The Life of Cowley," (1779).
Language is by its very nature a communal thing; that is, it expresses never the exact thing but a compromise ... that which is common to you, me, and everybody. — T. E. Hulme, , 1924.
Regardless of how primitive or abbreviated language may be, it is pivotal to cognition: by means of it we designate numbers, perform mathematics, calculations, analyze perceptions, distinguish the essential from the nonessential, and form categories of distinct impressions. Apart from being a means of communicating, language is fundamental to perception and memory, thinking and behavior. It organizes our inner life. — A. R. Luria.
In the book of Pygmalion, a play of an English woman who is looked down upon by society Because of her dialect and occupation, is no exception to what many struggle with to understand.
In the novel Divergent by Veronica Roth and the play Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw the main characters break the barriers bestowed upon them in their own societies and ultimately become their own persons through gaining independence, standing up for what...
Language is a solemn thing: it grows out of life ... out of its agonies and ecstasies, its wants and weariness. Every language is a temple in which the soul of those who speak it is enshrined. — Oliver Wendell Holmes.