Bilingual Quotes

“German is my mother tongue and as such more natural to me, but I consider Czech much more affectionate, which is why your letter removes several uncertainties; I see you more clearly, the movements of your body, your hands, so quick, so resolute, it’s almost like a meeting.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

“Can you read?" the boy said at last.
"Of course," said Arrietty. "Can't you?"
"No," he stammered. "I mean--yes. I mean I've just come from India."
"What's that got to do with it?" asked Arrietty.
"Well, if you're born in India, you're bilingual. And if you're bilingual, you can't read. Not so well."
Arrietty stared up at him: what a monster, she thought, dark against the sky.
"Do you grow out of it?" she asked.
He moved a little and she felt the cold flick of his shadow.
"Oh yes," head said, "it wears off. My sisters were bilingual; now they aren't a bit. They could read any of those books upstairs in the schoolroom."
"So could I," said Arrietty quickly, "if someone could hold them, and turn the pages. I'm not a bit bilingual. I can read anything.”
― Mary Norton, Borrowers

“Kyiv is a bilingual capital, something unusual in Europe and unthinkable in Russia and the United States. Europeans, Russians, and Americans rarely considered that everyday bilingualism might bespeak political maturity, and imagined instead that a Ukraine that spoke two languages must be divided into two groups and two halves. "Ethnic Ukrainians" must be a group that acts in one way, and "ethnic Russians" in another. This is about as true as to say that "ethnic Americans" vote Republican. It is more a summary of a politics that defines people by ethnicity, proposing to them an eternity of grievance rather than a politics of the future.”
― Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America

“I de mí.”
― Gustavo Pérez Firmat

“Language is the highway to culture.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

“Why can't bilingualism be seen as an extra resource? Is it because kids who can think in two languages are smarter?

(from the book Attitude, 2002)”
― Lalo Alcaraz

“Languages are but echoes of each other, Based on the environment each feels unique. No language is superior, no language is inferior, All are born of human mind to meet at heart's peak.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Insan Himalayanoğlu: It's Time to Defect

“I switch cultures like clothes,
I switch sciences like pens.
I switch scriptures like tides,
I switch languages like seasons.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“The night is bilingual. Its jaws open everywhere.”
― Sneha Subramanian Kanta

“I have been accused of being a bully. I think a lot of that stems from precisely my resistance to feel like I need to do the emotional labor of making people feel comfortable about what I’m saying. In particular, as a Latino scholar doing work in bilingual education, I’m particularly resistant to the idea that I need to make white people feel comfortable doing work in bilingual education. I put my work out there. I let it speak for itself. I certainly have never targeted anyone individually and personally insulted them, which is what bullying actually is, right?”
― Nelson Flores

“This whole idea of a bilingual brain is still, from my opinion, coming from a monolingual perspective in the sense that most of the world is bi- or multilingual. Why are we exceptionalizing the, quote, “bilingual” brain instead of the quote, “monolingual” brain to begin with? Why aren’t we saying, “What are the unique cognitive traits of monolingual people who are the minority of the population?”

Maybe a bilingual brain is just a brain and it’s the monolingual brain that’s actually this weird thing that we need to study. Of course, I don’t actually believe that, but I feel like some of the discourse exceptionalizing bilingualism, when we reverse it and really think about, well, if we describe monolingualism in that way, that would be really strange. Yet, “bilingual” describes more of the world’s population than “monolingual.” What exactly are we doing there?”
― Nelson Flores

“On growing up internationally - from the Daughter of Copper.

And so, with the greatest of ease, both as children and adults, we float back and forth between our two languages and cultures, seamlessly navigating the moments of time and place that define us.”
― Susan Bayless Herrera, Daughter of Copper, A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Identity, Growing up on Borrowed Land

“Earlier this year, a self-identified White, monolingual English-speaking teacher explained to me that, among other signs of her stupidity, Dr Baez’s English language skills are ‘horrible, and from what I hear, her Spanish isn’t that good either’...If Dr Baez, the bilingual school principal with multiple university degrees, including a doctorate in education, was subjected to such discriminatory thinking, then what could this mean for students, who were positioned in highly subordinate institutional positions?”
― Jonathan Rosa, Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race: Raciolinguistic Ideologies and the Learning of Latinidad

“While bilingual is understood as a valuable asset or goal for middle-class and upper-class students, for working-class and poor students it is framed as a disability that must be overcome”
― Jonathan Rosa, Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race: Raciolinguistic Ideologies and the Learning of Latinidad

“Being bilingual in English and Spanish language was useful during the Florida hurricane Ian disaster.”
― Steven Magee

“Becoming bilingual in English and Spanish language was a nice aspect of living in La Palma and having a Spanish girlfriend.”
― Steven Magee

“But you have to be somewhere I can find.
You understand?
Somewhere I can find.

I nod, because I know what he is saying
and what he is not saying.
He can't find me if I'm not here.
(p. 113 of the hardcover edition.)”
― Andrea Beatriz Arango, Iveliz Explains It All

“If you simply copy and paste instant translations, you only end up with meaningless and contextless junk, which has no relation to the culture and the people.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“Better to have no translation, than to have a translation without soul.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“Even after speaking six languages, I say, the supreme language is love.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“My brain is multilingual,
my heart is multicultural,
my life is multidimensional,
I exist for I dissolve in all.

You barely speak one language,
ramble doctrines from one dead book,
can't see beyond the customs of your tribe,
yet you say, your truth is the cosmic truth!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Öncelikle ben insan,
iyilik benim iman;
mundo mi monasterio,
annihilation my azan.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“One broken second language is far more valuable than all the mass-produced subtitles.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“Speaking more than one language delays age-related cognitive decline.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“Language is Highway to A Culture
(Diary of A Polyglot Neuroscientist, S.2392)

Languages are not ornaments,
languages are organs,
channeling spirit from the heart.

Language is highway to a culture,
language requires a vessel, not translator.
Soon earbuds will feature instant translation,
which will render crosscultural conversation seamless,
but at the same time, lifeless, hollow and cold.

Until we develop the brain technology
to communicate meaning telepathically
without talking, no amount of translation
can carry the warmth, nuances and
sentiment of a lived language.

As added perk, speaking more than one language
delays age-related cognitive decline.
Therefore no matter how you look at it,
one broken second language is far more
valuable than all the mass-produced subtitles.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“Until we develop the brain technology to communicate meaning telepathically without talking, no amount of translation can carry the warmth, nuances and sentiment of a lived language.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“I grew up speaking two languages,
mother tongue and national tongue,
then in my late teens I assimilated English
from pirated dvds of American movies;

soon after I absorbed another language,
from the South of India, again from movies.
Years later when I started writing and got WiFi,
that's when an entire new horizon opened up.

This time I found myself drawn to Turkish
and Spanish, which became second languages
in the canon, after my first English.

I don't describe, I embody -
I don't study a culture,
I disappear into the culture.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“How will you know if you can speak another language? If you can curse someone on impulse without memorizing, you got the language in your gut. If you can console someone in pain, the language nestles in your heart.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot

“Forget grammar, forget vocabulary, let the language seep into your bloodstream. In a world infested with medal-seeking mules, stand odd, stand ablaze, a drunken pilgrim.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot

“Pilgrim of Language (Sonnet)

How will you know if you
can speak another language?

If you can curse someone
on impulse without memorizing,
you got the language in your gut.
If you can console someone in pain,
the language nestles in your heart.

No es necessario que hablar guapisimo,
solamente necessario que hablar amable.
All those pedestals of language levels,
a, b, z, and what not, are elitist garbage.

Chase after form,
and you'll miss the soul -
throw yourself into the soul,
and neurons will regrow.

Forget grammar, forget vocabulary,
let the language seep into your bloodstream.
In a world infested with medal-seeking mules,
stand odd, stand ablaze, a drunken pilgrim.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot