A language is not a departmentalized grouping of relatively isolated structures; it is a functioning whole, and the parts are only fully describable in terms of their relationship to the whole. Nor are languages like simple geometric figures which can be described by beginning at one fixed point and methodically plotting the structure from there. Languages are exceedingly complex structures and they constitute their own frame of reference. Though one language should not be described in terms of any other language, no part of a single language can be described adequately without reference to other parts.
- Nida (1949), a pag.2-3

Language are constantly in the process of change.
- Nida (1949), a pag.3

It is impossible to anticipate the types of semantic distinctions which will be found in any particular language. Such systems of symbols certainly differ as much as the cultures which they reflect, and their meaning can only be ascertained from their environmental distribution.
- Nida (1949), a pag.161