The Language Game Quotes

“Linguistic order is always at the edge of chaos.”
― Morten H. Christiansen, The Language Game: How Improvisation Created Language and Changed the World

“Although we are all experts when it comes to language, we are all experts in slightly different languages. Our particular inventory of words and constructions and how we use them on the fly to play linguistic charades make each person's language unique. ....... A language is no more than a collection of so-called idiolects, each consisting of a distinctive combination of constructions, word choices, and personal styles of expression peculiar to a particular individual. Each and every one of us speaks a unique language that, for better or worse, will go extinct with us.”
― Morten H. Christiansen, The Language Game: How Improvisation Created Language and Changed the World