Person

Edward Sapir

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Overview

Edward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, and one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States. Born in German Pomerania, in what is now northern Poland, his family emigrated to the United States of America when he was a child. He studied Germanic linguistics at Columbia, where he came under the influence of Franz Boas, who inspired him to work on Native American languages. While finishing his Ph.D. he went to California to work with Alfred Kroeber documenting the indigenous languages there. He was employed by the Geological Survey of Canada for fifteen years, where he came into his own as one of the most significant linguists in North America, the other being Leonard Bloomfield. He was offered a professorship at the University of Chicago, and stayed for several years continuing to work for the professionalization of the discipline of linguistics. By the end of his life he was professor of anthropology at Yale. Among his many students were the linguists Mary Haas and Morris Swadesh, and anthropologists such as Fred Eggan and Hortense Powdermaker.

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Notable quotes

“Getting down to brass tacks, how in the Hell are you going to explain general American n- 'I' except genetically? It's disturbing, I know, but (more) non-committal conservatism is only dodging, after all, isn't it? Great simplifications are in store for us. … It seems to me that only now that is American linguistics becoming really interesting, at least in its ethnological bearings.”
— In a letter dated August 1, 1918
“Cultural anthropology is not valuable because it uncovers the archaic in the psychological sense. It is valuable because it is constantly rediscovering the normal.”
— Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry (1932), p. 515
“It would be naïve to imagine that any analysis of experience is dependent on pattern expressed in language. Any concept, whether or not it forms part of the system of grammatical categories, can be conveyed in any language. If a notion is lacking in a given series, it implies a different configuration and not a lack of expressive power.”
— "American Indian Grammatical Categories", edited by Morris Swadesh in Word, 2 (1946)
“Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.”
— As cited in: Geza Revesz, The Origins and Prehistory of Language, London 1956. footnote pp. 126-127; As cited in: Adam Schaff (1962). Introduction to semantics, p. 313-314
“Fashion is custom in the guise of departure from custom.”
— p. 140
“Human beings do not wish to be modest; they want to be as expressive — that is, as immodest — as fear allows; fashion helps them solve that paradoxical problem.”
— p. 140

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

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Overview

Edward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, and one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States. Born in German Pomerania, in what is now northern Poland, his family emigrated to the United States of America when he was a child. He studied Germanic linguistics at Columbia, where he came under the influence of Franz Boas, who inspired him to work on Native American languages. While finishing his Ph.D. he went to California to work with Alfred Kroeber documenting the indigenous languages there. He was employed by the Geological Survey of Canada for fifteen years, where he came into his own as one of the most significant linguists in North America, the other being Leonard Bloomfield. He was offered a professorship at the University of Chicago, and stayed for several years continuing to work for the professionalization of the discipline of linguistics. By the end of his life he was professor of anthropology at Yale. Among his many students were the linguists Mary Haas and Morris Swadesh, and anthropologists such as Fred Eggan and Hortense Powdermaker.

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Notable quotes

“Getting down to brass tacks, how in the Hell are you going to explain general American n- 'I' except genetically? It's disturbing, I know, but (more) non-committal conservatism is only dodging, after all, isn't it? Great simplifications are in store for us. … It seems to me that only now that is American linguistics becoming really interesting, at least in its ethnological bearings.”
— In a letter dated August 1, 1918
“Cultural anthropology is not valuable because it uncovers the archaic in the psychological sense. It is valuable because it is constantly rediscovering the normal.”
— Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry (1932), p. 515
“It would be naïve to imagine that any analysis of experience is dependent on pattern expressed in language. Any concept, whether or not it forms part of the system of grammatical categories, can be conveyed in any language. If a notion is lacking in a given series, it implies a different configuration and not a lack of expressive power.”
— "American Indian Grammatical Categories", edited by Morris Swadesh in Word, 2 (1946)
“Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.”
— As cited in: Geza Revesz, The Origins and Prehistory of Language, London 1956. footnote pp. 126-127; As cited in: Adam Schaff (1962). Introduction to semantics, p. 313-314
“Fashion is custom in the guise of departure from custom.”
— p. 140
“Human beings do not wish to be modest; they want to be as expressive — that is, as immodest — as fear allows; fashion helps them solve that paradoxical problem.”
— p. 140

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.