Coma se se tratase dunha impalpable cadea anímica, a lingua cingue en irmandade espiritual única a cantos a falaron no pasado, a falan no presente e a falarán no futuro. En cada intre do tempo a lingua conserva e mostra, convertidas en palabras – que veñen ser como vivas arquiñas sonoras – tódalas experiencias espirituais dos que a foron creando no pasado, recolle e asimila todas as que lle incorporan os que a falan na actualidade e entrégalle todo este caudal expresivo, todo este inmenso tesouro espiritual, arrequecido sen descanso por sucesivas xeracións, a cada un dos que comezan a aprendela cada día.

Like an intangible chain of souls, language binds in unique spiritual brotherhood all those who have spoken it in the past, who speak it in the present and who will speak it in the future. At every moment in time language conserves and displays, made into words – which are like living little treasure chests of sound– all the spiritual experiences of those who contributed to creating it in the past, gathers and assimilates all the experiences incorporated into it by those who speak it today and bestows this entire wealth of expression, this immense spiritual fortune, ceaselessly enriched by successive generations, to every person who begins to learn it each day.

For the classical linguist, of course, each language is a system whose unity is always reconstituted. But this unity is not comparable to any other. It is open to the most radical grafting, open to deformations, transformations, expropriation, to a certain a-nomie and de-regulation.