Let us consider a life in whose course there is abundance of repetitions: mine, for example. I never pass in front of the Recoleta without remembering my father, my grandparents, and great-grand parents are buried there, just as I shall be some day; then I remember that I have remembered the same thing an untold number of times already; I cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does; I cannot lament the loss of a love or friendship without meditating that one loses only what one really never had; every time I cross one of the street corners of the southern part of the city, I think of you, Helen; every time the wind brings me the smell of eucalyptus, I think of Adrogué in my childhood; every time I remember the ninety-first fragment of Heraclitus “You shall not go down twice to the same river”, I admire its dialectical dexterity, because the ease with which we accept the first meaning (“The river is different”) clandestinely imposes upon us the second (“I am different”) and grants us the illusion of having invented it; every time I hear a Germanophile vituperate the Yiddish language, I reflect that Yiddish is, after all, a German dialect, scarcely coloured by the language of Holy Spirit. These tautologies (and others I leave in silence) make up my entire life. Of course, they are repeated imprecisely; there are differences of emphasis, temperature, light and general psychological condition. I suspect, however, that the number of circumstantial variants is not infinite: we can postulate, in the mind of an individual (or of two individuals who do not know of each other but in whom the same process works), two identical moments. Once this identity is postulated, one may ask: Are not these identical moments the same? Is not one single repeated term sufficient to break down and confuse the series of time? Do not the fervent readers who surrender themselves to Shakespeare become, literally, Shakespeare?
— Jorge Luis Borges. “A Refutation of Time.” Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings. Ed Donald A. Yates & James E. Irby. London & New York: Penguin, 1970. p258-9
又譬如，而「譬如」不曾接近它的所指：本文首段實以英文句法所寫，而且在兩文對照與翻譯之間，常有意料之外的泛音和歧義：Later on, I feel as though there is not a “mother tongue” of mine. The notion of “mother tongue” demands a certain kind of identification which I, and many others, could not fulfil in the first place。
(1)「粼粼的水聚散著游動的符號──電影、時間、與我」，《另起爐灶》香港：青文，1996，頁121。
(2)中大雙語政策委員會，於2007年提交的《雙語政策委員會報告書》中指雙語教育的目標應包括：「所有中大本科生，不論是本地生或外來生，也不論其入學時的語言文化背景，都應在中大肄業期間接受雙語的薰陶與訓練。以中文為母語的學生，須在畢業時達到相當高的中英文水平，無論在日常生活中，或從事專業工作，都能有效地運用雙語。母語不是中文的學生，如入學時未達到教務會要求的中文水平，必須在畢業前達到所需標準，例如：修畢教務會指定的語文科目，完成學分要求。」
中大雙語政策委員會，《雙語政策委員會報告書》，16/7/2007。頁8，「中大雙語政策的理念和目標」4.4.5。
(3)Ethnologue: Languages of the World (16th edition). Ed. M. Paul Lewis. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. 2009.
見http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=yue (瀏灠日期：27/07/2009)
另有一統計為六千七百萬至一億三千萬，見 Lai, H. Mark. Becoming Chinese American: A History of Communities and Institutions. AltaMira Press, 2004. (other bibliographical information unknown)
有關粵語與廣西等地壯藏使用的壯語之歷史互動，可參考：Huang Yuanwei. “The interaction between Zhuang and the Yue (Cantonese) dialects.” 見Comparative Kadai: The Tai branch. Eds. Jerold A. Edmondson & David B. Solnit. Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington Publications in Linguistics, 124. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington. 1997, P 57-76.
(4)隨手拈來的例子有：「……我們將藉此契機，推出一系列的國民教育項目，包括製作新一輯國歌系列電視宣傳片及中國國情系列電視特輯[…] 舉辦郵票設計比賽及其他活動以進一步深化並鞏固社會各階層對國情的認識及對國家的歸屬感。」
立法會CB(2)42/08-09(01)號文件，「民政事務局的政策措施」。頁2。10/2008。
(5)顯然，在九成半以上人口會使用粵語的語境中推行雙語政策的「實際需要」，與多民族語境如馬來西亞推行類似語言政策的「實際需要」截然不同。
(6)可參考：楊聰榮。＜香港的語言問題與語言政策：兼談香港語言政策對客語族群的影響＞「各國語言政策研討會」，中華民國行政院客家委員會、淡江大學公共行政系暨公共政策研究所，09/2002。
(7)「從學術角度看，今天我們用的中文叫「現代漢語」，它包括作為標準語的普通話，也包括分佈在中國各地的漢語方言。普通話的基礎是一般稱為官話的北方方言，書面語也是根據官話方言發展而來的。嚴格來說，普通話並不等於官話，官話也是一種方言。至於流行於兩廣，以廣州話為代表的粵語也是一種方言。所有方言都有自己的語音、詞彙、語法系統，都承載著方言區的文化，有一定的實用、文化及學術價值。」
中大雙語政策委員會，《雙語政策委員會報告書》，16/7/2007。頁7，4.2。