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Edward Sapir Quotes

1884–1939 Germany

Edward Sapir (Jan. 26, 1884 – Feb. 4, 1939) was an American anthropologist and linguist, a leader in American structural linguistics, and a pioneer of concepts in linguistic relativity as a creator of what is now called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. He is arguably the most influential figure in American linguistics.

Germany
Academics
Anthropologists
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Random Edward Sapir quote

9 quotes

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)

Fashion is custom in the guise of departure from custom.

Fashion (1931)

Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.

Language (1921)

It would be naïve to imagine that any analysis of experience is dependent on pattern expressed in language.

Getting down to brass tacks, how in the Hell are you going to explain general American n- 'I' except genetically?

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.

Fashion (1931)

Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society.

The Status Of Linguistics As A Science (1929)

Were a language ever completely "grammatical" it would be a perfect engine of conceptual expression. Unfortunately, or luckily, no language is tyrannically consistent. All grammars leak.

Language (1921)

The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached … We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.

The Status Of Linguistics As A Science (1929)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Edward Sapir (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.