Were a language ever completely "grammatical" it would be a perfect engine of conceptual expression. Unfortunately, or luckily, … - Edward Sapir

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To speak about notation as the only way that you can guarantee structure of course is already very suspect.

Edward Sapir

Were a language ever completely "grammatical" it would be a perfect engine of conceptual expression. Unfortunately, or luckily, no language is tyrannically consistent. All grammars leak.

Completely, Conceptual, Expression, Luckily, Perfect, Would Be

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The psychology of a language which, in one way or another, is imposed upon one because of factors beyond one's control, is very different from the psychology of a language which one accepts of one's free will.

Different, Factors, Free, Imposed, Psychology, Way

A common allegiance to form of expression that is identified with no single national unit is likely to prove one of the most potent symbols of the freedom of the human spirit that the world has yet known.

Expression, Known, Spirit, World

Human beings do not wish to be modest; they want to be as expressive - that is, as immodest - as fear allows; fashion helps them solve that paradoxical problem.

Allows, Beings, Fashion, Want, Wish

A second type of direct evidence is formed by statements, whether as formal legends or personal information, regarding the age or relative sequence of events in tribal history made by the natives themselves.

Age, Events, Legends, Regarding, Statements, Type

A logical analysis of reflexive usages in French shows, however, that this simplicity is an illusion and that, so far from helping the foreigner, it is more calculated to bother him.

Analysis, Bother, Foreigner, Helping, Simplicity

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