Edward Sapir Quotes

• The spirit of logical analysis should in practice blend with the practical pressure for the adoption of some form of international language, but it should not allow itself to be stampeded by it.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Logical, Analysis, Spirit

• The psychology of a language which, in one way or another, is imposed upon one because of factors beyond one’s control, is very different from the psychology of a language which one accepts of one’s free will.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Psychology, Language, Factors

• Both French and Latin are involved with nationalistic and religious implications which could not be entirely shaken off, and so, while they seemed for a long time to have solved the international language problem up to a certain point, they did not really do so in spirit.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Nationalistic, Religious, Implication, Language

• No important national language, at least in the Occidental world, has complete regularity of grammatical structure, nor is there a single logical category which is adequately and consistently handled in terms of linguistic symbolism.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Grammatical, Language, Structure

• It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Communication, Problems

• A common allegiance to form of expression that is identified with no single national unit is likely to prove one of the most potent symbols of the freedom of the human spirit that the world has yet known.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Freedom, Human, Spirit

• A second type of direct evidence is formed by statements, whether as formal legends or personal information, regarding the age or relative sequence of events in tribal history made by the natives themselves.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Evidence, Personal, Information

• 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.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Society

  Tags in Human Beings, Expression

• So far as the advocates of a constructed international language are concerned, it is rather to be wondered at how much in common their proposals actually have, both in vocabulary and in general spirit of procedure.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in International, Language, Concerned

• The modern mind tends to be more and more critical and analytical in spirit, hence it must devise for itself an engine of expression which is logically defensible at every point and which tends to correspond to the rigorous spirit of modern science.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Analytical, Critical, Spirit, Modern, Science

• The attitude of independence toward a constructed language which all national speakers must adopt is really a great advantage, because it tends to make man see himself as the master of language instead of its obedient servant.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Attitude

  Tags in Independence, Constructed, Language

• It would, of course, be hopeless to attempt to crowd into an international language all those local overtones of meaning which are so dear to the heart of the nationalist.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Nationalist, Hopeless, Heart

• Comparison of statements made at different periods frequently enable us to give maximal and minimal dates to the appearance of a cultural element or to assign the time limits to a movement of population.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Population, Appearance, Movement

• No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Social, Reality

• One of the glories of English simplicity is the possibility of using the same word as noun and verb.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Glories, English, Simplicity

• National languages are all huge systems of vested interests which sullenly resist critical inquiry.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in National, Languages, Systems

• A standard international language should not only be simple, regular, and logical, but also rich and creative.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in International, Language, Standard

• A logical analysis of reflexive usages in French shows, however, that this simplicity is an illusion and that, so far from helping the foreigner, it is more calculated to bother him.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Logical, Analysis, Simplicity

• A firm, for instance, that does business in many countries of the world is driven to spend an enormous amount of time, labour, and money in providing for translation services.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Business

  Tags in Countries, World

• More and more, unsolicited gifts from without are likely to be received with unconscious resentment.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Unconscious, Resentment

Edward Sapir (32)

Birth:	26th January, 1884
Death:	4th February, 1939
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Anthropologist, Linguist

About

Edward Sapir was born in Lębork, Poland . He was an American anthropologist and linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the early development of the discipline of linguistics. He studied Germanic linguistics at Columbia, where he came under the influence of Franz Boas who inspired him to work on Native American languages. He earned both a B.A. and an M.A. in Germanic philology from Columbia, before embarking on his Ph.D. in Anthropology which he completed in 1909. By the end of his life he was professor of anthropology at Yale, where he never really fit in.

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