Marriage is simply an economic necessity, and so there are no elaborate courtship displays or marriage celebrations among the Eskimo.

An inability to communicate has little to do with international friction-as is seen in the special ferocity of wars fought between people who speak the same language.

Speakers who have grown up in the American community unconsciously know its rules about taking turns in conversations-in the same way that they know the rules of grammar and the rules about appropriate speech in various situations.

Letters to the editors of English and American newspapers often contain expressions of horror about the new terms that creep into the language, and these expressions are usually accompanied by dire predictions about ruination of the mother tongue.

A complex society is not necessarily more advanced than a simple one; it has just adapted to conditions in a more complicated way.

No child is capable of speech until he has heard other human beings speak, and even two infants reared together cannot develop a language from scratch.

The environment does not determine man's culture; it merely sets the outer limits and at the same time offers opportunities.