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.

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.

Language does not stand still. Surprisingly, despite this knowledge, most speakers are fearful of change.

At every moment of his life the Shoshone must be careful to observe the complicated folkways of his group, to do reverence to superhuman powers, to remember the courtesies and obligations of family, to pay homage to certain sacred plants, or to avoid particular places.

The dictionary is a closed system in which someone interested in the meaning of a word can go around and around and end up exactly where he started, simply because words are defined in terms of other words, and these, in turn, are defined in terms of still other words.

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

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.