Everyone, left to his own devices, forms an idea about what goes on in language which is very far from the truth.

The very special place that a language occupies among institutions is undeniable, but there is much more to be said-, a comparison would tend rather to bring out the differences.

The business, task or object of the scientific study of languages will if possible be 1) to trace the history of all known languages. Naturally this is possible only to a very limited extent and for very few languages.

Speech has both an individual and a social side, and we cannot conceive of one without the other.

The first of these phases is that of grammar, invented by the Greeks and carried on unchanged by the French. It never had any philosophical view of a language as such.

Time changes all things; there is no reason why language should escape this universal law

The connection between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary.