Spoken language Quotes

“Phonocentrism places higher value on spoken language as being more primary than and thus superior to written language, which it conceives as necessarily corrupting the original Subject—the center of meaning.”

“Over the years, my church gave me passage into a menagerie of exotic words unknown in the South: "introit," "offertory," "liturgy," "movable feast," "the minor elevation," "the lavabo," "the apparition of Lourdes," and hundreds more. Latin deposited the dark minerals of its rhythms on the shelves of my spoken language. You may find the harmonics of the Common of the Mass in every book I've ever written. Because I was raised Roman Catholic, I never feared taking any unchaperoned walks through the fields of language. Words lifted me up and filled me with pleasure.”

“A spoken language is a body, a living creature, whose physiognomy is verbal and whose visceral functions are linguistic. And this creature's home is the inarticulate as well as the articulate.”

“Which is the least spoken language, world-wide?The language of Truth”

“Scientists attach great importance to the human capacity for spoken language. But we also have a parallel track of nonverbal communication, which may reveal more than our carefully chosen words, and sometimes be at odds with them.”

“Human spoken language seems to beadventitious. The exploitation of organ systems with other functions for communication in humans is also indicative of the comparatively recent evolution of our linguistic abilities.”

“In Canada we have enough to do keeping up with two spoken languages ... so we just go right ahead and use English for literature Scotch for sermons and American for conversation.”

“Sometimes there aren't words, Benny knew. Sometimes there are hurts so deep that they exist in a country that has no spoken language, a place where all landscapes are blighted and no sun ever shines. Benny had left his footprints in the dust of that place.”

“Forgiveness was a mere noun; a fleeting concept of little importance in the grand scheme of written and spoken language, and was thereby spilt freely like cheap, overabundant wine without consequence. Yet forgive was a verb and in turn held far more potency; an action that must be genuine and consciously performed without reservation in order to fully embody the idea behind it. It was both a plea and an affirmation that could only be acknowledged as obtainable through the mutual contract of expression and acceptance between two parties of equal understanding. Enacting forgiveness was and always would be more difficult than simply declaring that the concept itself existed, and the irreversible condition of the human heart would forever ensure that such disparity would remain fact.”

“Brother Cavil: In all your travels, have you ever seen a star go supernova? ...I have. I saw a star explode and send out the building blocks of the Universe. Other stars, other planets and eventually other life. A supernova! Creation itself! I was there. I wanted to see it and be part of the moment. And you know how I perceived one of the most glorious events in the universe? With these ridiculous gelatinous orbs in my skull! With eyes designed to perceive only a tiny fraction of the EM spectrum. With ears designed only to hear vibrations in the air. ...I don't want to be human! I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! And I want to - I want to smell dark matter! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly because I have to - I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language! But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws! And feel the wind of a supernova flowing over me! I'm a machine! And I can know much more! I can experience so much more. But I'm trapped in this absurd body! And why? Because my five creators thought that God wanted it that way!”