Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a defining framework for it.

But in due course it became evident that not only a physical situation qua physics, but the meaning of that situation to people, was sometimes a factor, through the behavior of people, in the start of a fire.

We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language.

Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a defining framework for it.

The very natural tendency to use terms derived from traditional grammar like verb, noun, adjective, passive voice, in describing languages outside of Indo-European is fraught with grave possibilities of misunderstanding.

Most metaphysical words in Hopi are verbs, not nouns as in European languages.

The world that is coming toward us out of time is going to be very much richer in a mental sense because (among other freedoms) we are going to get a modicum of freedom from linguistic frameworks, from familiar mental habits. Anyone who really knows two or more tongues realizes that even that small enlargement of liberty . . . gives him new perspectives, exercizes his soul anew.