Edward Sapir Quotes

• In a sense, every form of expression is imposed upon one by social factors, one’s own language above all.

  Edward Sapir

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  Tags in Social, Factors, Language

• It is no secret that the fruits of language study are in no sort of relation to the labour spent on teaching and learning them.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Language, Study

• Impatience translates itself into a desire to have something immediate done about it all, and, as is generally the case with impatience, resolves itself in the easiest way that lies ready to hand.

  Edward Sapir

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  Tags in Impatience, Desire

• English, once accepted as an international language, is no more secure than French has proved to be as the one and only accepted language of diplomacy or as Latin has proved to be as the international language of science.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Language, Diplomacy

• I am convinced that the stratigraphic method will in the future enable archaeology to throw far more light on the history of American culture than it has done in the past.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in History

  Tags in American, Culture

• French and German illustrate the misleading character of apparent grammatical simplicity just as well.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Character, Simplicity, Nations

• Cultural anthropology is more and more rapidly getting to realize itself as a strictly historical science.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Cultural, Anthropology, Historical, Science

• A common creation demands a common sacrifice, and perhaps not the least potent argument in favour of a constructed international language is the fact that it is equally foreign, or apparently so, to the traditions of all nationalities.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Constructed, International, Language

• The supposed inferiority of a constructed language to a national one on the score of richness of connotation is, of course, no criticism of the idea of a constructed language.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Inferiority, Constructed, Language

• These examples of the lack of simplicity in English and French, all appearances to the contrary, could be multiplied almost without limit and apply to all national languages.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Simplicity, National, Languages

• As a matter of fact, a national language which spreads beyond its own confines very quickly loses much of its original richness of content and is in no better case than a constructed language.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in National, Language

• We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.

  Edward Sapir

  Topics in Experience

  Tags in Community, Language

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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