Polyglot Quotes

“We will not find security for ourselves if we are estranged from the other people of this world and alienated from them and their cultures. We will not find peace for ourselves and our children by continuing to ignore other people and by arrogantly insisting that the rest of the world must learn from us what we are willing to teach and must speak to us only in our tongue.”
― Sol M. Linowitz

“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

“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

“My brain is multilingual,
my heart is multicultural,
my life is multidimensional,
I exist for I dissolve in all.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Childish eurocentric conventions are too puny to contain the vastness of a transcendental human, sometimes I'm Dervish, sometimes Advaita, and the Brain Scientist keeps out the superstition.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“I'm colored, I'm scientist, I'm poet, I'm polyglot - coming from zero money, I won the world with words. Try and get your puny white brains around this existence enigma.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“Larger than tribe, larger than time, I am Detonation of The First Multicultural Civilization.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

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

“Mundo Mi Monasterio
(Imanjali, Sonnet 2344)

Patriot beyond nation,
religious beyond religion,
cultured beyond culture -
that's a complete human.

Conscience is my CV,
Biodata, Bulldozer,
Revolution, my resume,
Citizenship, Earthistana.

Hindistan bana can verdi,
Amerika bana şan verdi,
Türkiye bana kalp verdi,
ve Dünya bana amaç verdi.

En sevdiğim kitap Mesnevi,
en sevdiğim şair Mevlana,
en sevdiğim dil Türkçe -
yinede derviş, şair, hepsi sonra,

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

“Sonnet Shahada, 2345

I switch cultures like clothes,
I switch sciences like pens.
I switch scriptures like tides,
I switch languages like seasons.

Service of humanity is supreme shahada,
to defend the persecuted is cosmic khalsa,
to treat neighbor as god is real dharma,
quiet kindness is the real karma.

Ana al-haqq, ana al-hub -
aham bindu, aham brahmanda.
I shed dogma like dead skin,
el cosmos es mi casa.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“You don’t enter a culture, you disappear into it, be annihilated for others, and you come to life.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“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

“I opened my eyes and couldn't find a single precedent of post-national, post-religion, post-lingual, post-cultural existence, so I became the precedent.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“I opened my eyes and couldn't find a single precedent of post-national, post-religion, post-lingual, post-cultural existence, so I became the precedent. My roots go deep down to the core of earth, spread across the bones and marrow of the human race.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“My roots go deep down to the core of earth, spread across the bones and marrow of the human race.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“My roots run deep down to the core of earth, spread across the bones and marrow of the human race.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot

“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

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

“All Roots Are Chains (Sonnet 2424)

Proverb goes, change takes time;
I say, time takes change,
for without change there is no time.

And it always begins with you, and
by that, I mean us - you, me, all of us.
I opened my eyes, and couldn't find
a single proper multicultural human
in the world, so I became one -

even the best of egalitarian thinkers
still remain rooted in their geography,
for that's the norm of their time and age,

but for myself, I find such trait
to be nothing more than a tribal vestige,
unbecoming of the time-fabric I'm weaving.

I must be free, absolutely, unequivocally free,
from all forms of chains masquerading as roots -
so I stand free, from every last inherited loyalty,
not as a better human, just an invitation.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Your dictionaries are too small for my voice, your disciplines are too primitive for my existence - not with intellect, not with faith - to read me you have to think plurally and feel planetary.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Not with intellect, not with faith - to read me you have to think plurally and feel planetary.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“To read me you have to think plurally and feel planetary.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Your dictionaries are too small for my voice, your disciplines are too primitive for my existence.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“My brain is the planet’s largest organic manufacturing plant of multiculturalism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, With Love From A Blue Rock