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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.

— Edward Sapir Language (1921)

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More quotes by Edward Sapir

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?

All Edward Sapir quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Edward Sapir (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.