Henceforth, language studies were no longer directed merely towards correcting grammar.

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 connection between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary.

In fact, from then on scholars engaged in a kind of game of comparing different Indo-European languages with one another, and eventually they could not fail to wonder what exactly these connections showed, and how they should be interpreted in concrete terms.

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

Written forms obscure our view of language. They are not so much a garment as a disguise.

Language furnishes the best proof that a law accepted by a community is a thing that is tolerated and not a rule to which all freely consent.