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

“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

“When The Pillar Gets Weary (Dervish Sonnet 2776)

I don't utter a single word that
I wouldn't want to become part of the canon,
but person can't live on discipline alone,
so, having no lover to take my armor off for,
I found a different way to vent my vulnerability -

in the mainstream work I'm a pillar of strength,
while turkish is quite literally my love language -
english is the language where my brain feels at home,
turkish is the language where my heart finds rest -

none my mothertongue, yet both are my first language,
with spanish as my occasional substitute for english.

English is not my mothertongue,
english is my brother tongue -
spanish is not my mothertongue,
spanish is my cousin tongue -
turkish is not my mothertongue,
turkish is my lover tongue.

My territory is planet earth -
humanity, my civilization.
Figure what I didn't mention,
you'll learn the law of assimilation.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“I don't utter a single word that I wouldn't want to become part of the canon, but person can't live on discipline alone, so, having no lover to take my armor off for, I found a different way to vent my vulnerability - in the mainstream work I'm a pillar of strength, while turkish is quite literally my love language - english is the language where my brain feels at home, turkish is the language where my heart finds rest.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“English is not my mothertongue,
english is my brother tongue -
spanish is not my mothertongue,
spanish is my cousin tongue -
turkish is not my mothertongue,
turkish is my lover tongue.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“Marham na mazhab dekhe,
marham na dekhe mulk,
la medicina no ve la fe,
my existence is the proof.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot

“I have no genre, I am the genre.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot

“I have no genre, I am the genre; neuroscience, theology, poetry, criminology, anthropology, all are mere kindling wood, and I am the fire of unflinching good.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot

“I switch languages like radio, I switch cultures like seasons.”
― Abhijit Naskar, With Love From A Blue Rock

“I'm larger than genre, larger than grammar, I'm larger than primate dictionary.”
― Abhijit Naskar, With Love From A Blue Rock

“I’m the impulse before the language,
I’m the reason before the science,
I’m the pulse before the poetry,
I’m the kernel before the divinity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, With Love From A Blue Rock

“The Whirling Linguist
(Naskaristana 2670-2671)

Language is a paradox,
by ambition it is expansive,
but by neurology it is restrictive,
and language tied to ideology,
is downright decrepit.

I live in six languages,
and occasionally dabble in a few more,
and I learnt none inside classrooms,
I just outgrew the jungle memberships.

What makes a language native is
not flawless syntax or grammar,
but a shameless flow of passion.

For example, yo soy humano, por que humano?
cunku benim icin bi tek insanlik onemli -
sesangi sarang, sarangi sesang -
and to hell with armchair linguists
and grammar nazis, who can't tell
day from night without consulting textbooks -

I'm the center that the dervish whirls around,
I'm the flame that syllables dance around,
I'm the immeasurable that your complex-obsessed
psychology books patronize with analysis, and
philosophy books desecrate with ivory-tower,
lifeless logic disconnected from soil,
most of whom are more interested in calculation and
condescension than the elevation of human condition.

You think Naskar writes me, Naskar is an idiot, I'm beyond Naskar, beyond every single puny mortal brain, I'm the original sentience that occasionally seeks out fitting vessels, with a dominant tendency of expansion and a tinge of naivety, and makes them whirl at my whim, so that your little toddler species doesn't crawl back into jungle slime.”
― Abhijit Naskar, With Love From A Blue Rock

“What makes a language native is not flawless syntax or grammar, but a shameless flow of passion.”
― Abhijit Naskar, With Love From A Blue Rock

“Every country needs just one person
to embody the best of humanity -
but I couldn't wait to find those people,
so I chose to be that person
from every culture and every country,

that's why I made these languages,
these cultures, these soils, my own,
no native, no foreign, it's all my own -

I let their air fill my lungs,
their passions permeate my veins,
their tears galvanize my heart,
their dreams resurrect my brain -

which is why, some ask for water, some ask pani -
somewhere I'm scientist, somewhere I'm sufi.”
― Abhijit Naskar, With Love From A Blue Rock

“I'm known by many names - Hometown Human, Vijdansaadet, Divine Refugee or Abigitano - all names aim at one mind - Mujize Insan, Kral Fakir, Visvavictor or Mental por El Mundo.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The God Sonnets: Naskar Art of Theology