Quotes about Language

Now the whole world had one language and a common form of speech.

And the LORD said, “If they have begun to do this as one people speaking the same language, then nothing they devise will be beyond them.

Come, let Us go down and confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”

That is why it is called Babel, for there the LORD confused the language of the whole world, and from that place the LORD scattered them over the face of all the earth.

They did not realize that Joseph understood them, since there was an interpreter between them.

The LORD will bring a nation from afar, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down upon you like an eagle—a nation whose language you will not understand,

they told him, “Please say Shibboleth.” If he said, “Sibboleth,” because he could not pronounce it correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. So at that time 42,000 Ephraimites were killed.

Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, along with Shebnah and Joah, said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Do not speak with us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.”

The letter you sent us has been translated and read in my presence.

Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or of the other peoples, but could not speak the language of Judah.

He sent letters to all the provinces of the kingdom, to each province in its own script and to each people in their own language, proclaiming that every man should be master of his own household.

On the thirteenth day of the first month, the royal scribes were summoned and the order was written exactly as Haman commanded the royal satraps, the governors of each province, and the officials of each people, in the script of each province and the language of every people. It was written in the name of King Xerxes and sealed with the royal signet ring.