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Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir Quotes

Anthropologist

Edward Sapir was a prominent American anthropologist known for his profound research on language and culture. Born on January 26, 1884, and passing away on February 4, 1939, Sapir's work had a profound impact on the development of modern anthropology, particularly in the fields of linguistic anthropology and semiotics.

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Famous Edward Sapir Quotes

“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.”

Done Light Past Culture Method Convinced American Culture Archaeology

Book:Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

Source: Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

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

Form Language Social Expression Factors

Book:General Linguistics

Source: General Linguistics

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

Language Interest Huge Critical Inquiry Vested Interests National Language

Book:Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

Source: Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

“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.”

Should Form Spirit Language Practice Pressure International Practicals Analysis Logical Adoption International Language

Book:Culture, Language, and Personality: Selected Essays

Source: Culture, Language, and Personality: Selected Essays

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

Possibility Glory Simplicity Verbs Nouns

Book:General Linguistics

Source: General Linguistics

“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.”

Spirit Language Common Concerned International Vocabulary Proposal Procedures International Language

Book:General Linguistics

Source: General Linguistics

“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.”

Would Be Language Perfect Expression Consistent Engines Grammar Leaks

Author:Edward Sapir

“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.”

Want Humans Helping Problem Wish Human Beings Fashion Solve Modest Expressive Paradoxical

Book:Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

Source: Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

“Cultural anthropology is not valuable because it uncovers the archaic in the psychological sense. It is valuable because it is constantly rediscovering the normal.”

Normal Valuable Psychological Anthropology

Book:Selected Writings in Language, Culture and Personality

Source: Selected Writings in Language, Culture and Personality

“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.”

Ifs Different Would Be Form Language Given Imagine Concepts Series Notion Patterns Analysis Dependent Categories Imagine That Lacking Expressive Configuration

Author:Edward Sapir

“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.”

Language Example Limits Simplicity Appearance Contrary National Language

Book:Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

Source: Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

“Nonverbal communication is an elaborate secret code that is written nowhere, known by none, and understood by all.”

Secret Known Written Communication Understood Code Nonverbal

Author:Edward Sapir

“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.”

World Doe Country Amount Driven Enormous Instance Firm Labour Providing Translations Countries Of The World

Book:Selected Writings of Edward Sapir

Source: Selected Writings of Edward Sapir

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

Two Reality Language Social Representing Social Service

Book:Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

Source: Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

“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.”

Facts Language Common Sacrifice Creation Demand Argument Tradition International Favour Nationality International Language

Book:Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

Source: Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

“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.”

Way Different Language Accepting Psychology Factors One Way Free Will

Book:General Linguistics

Source: General Linguistics

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

Certain Choices Language Community Habit Interpretation Our Community

Book:Culture, Language, and Personality: Selected Essays

Source: Culture, Language, and Personality: Selected Essays

“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.”

World Humans Language Social Human Beings Particular Expression Activity Understood Mercy Objectives Mediums

Book:Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

Source: Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

“What fetters the mind and benumbs the spirit is ever the dogged acceptance of absolutes.”

Mind Spirit Acceptance Absolutes Fetters

Book:Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

Source: Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

“Language is the most massive and inclusive art we know, a mountainous and anonymous work of unconscious generations.”

Knows Art Language Work Generations Unconscious Massive Linguistics Linguists Inclusiveness Culture And Language

Book:Language

Source: Language

“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.”

World Humans Form Spirit Common Known Expression Prove Symbols Units Human Spirit Allegiance Freedom Of Expression

Book:General Linguistics

Source: General Linguistics

“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.”

Made Age Events Information Type Evidence Direct Statements Legends Relative Formal Sequence Personal Information Sequence Of Events

Book:Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

Source: Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

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

Should Language Simple Creative Rich Standards International Logical International Language

Book:General Linguistics

Source: General Linguistics

“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.”

Helping Shows Illusion Simplicity Bother Analysis Logical Foreigners Usage

Book:General Linguistics

Source: General Linguistics

“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.”

Matter Facts Language Loses Cases Originals Spread Richness Matter Of Fact National Language

Book:General Linguistics

Source: General Linguistics

“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.”

Giving Made Different Movement Periods Limits Elements Population Appearance Statements Comparison Time Limit

Book:Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

Source: Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

“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.”

Long Problem Spirit Certain Language Religious Involved Long Time International Latin Implications Nationalistic International Language

Book:General Linguistics

Source: General Linguistics

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

Realizing Historical Anthropology

Book:Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

Source: Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

“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.”

Language International Accepted Secure Latin Diplomacy International Language

Book:Culture, Language and Personality

Source: Culture, Language and Personality

“Language is an anonymous, collective and unconscious art; the result of the creativity of thousands of generations.”

Life Inspirational Art Language Results Creativity Generations Unconscious Collectives

Author:Edward Sapir

“The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group.”

World Real Matter Facts Language Groups Habit Built Real World

Book:General Linguistics

Source: General Linguistics

“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.”

Mean Use Problem Reality Language Imagine Communication Illusion Reflection Imagine That Use Of Language

Book:Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

Source: Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

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

Unconscious Resentment

Book:General Linguistics

Source: General Linguistics

“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.”

Heart Courses Language International Dear Crowds Locals Hopeless International Language

Book:General Linguistics

Source: General Linguistics

“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.”

Language Secret Study Teaching Relation Fruit Labour Teaching And Learning

Book:Culture, Language and Personality

Source: Culture, Language and Personality

“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.”

World Important Language Term Structure Logical Categories Consistently Symbolism Regularity National Language

Book:General Linguistics

Source: General Linguistics

“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.”

Men Language Attitude Masters Advantage Independence Servant Speakers Obedient

Book:General Linguistics

Source: General Linguistics

“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.”

Way Done Hands Lying Desire Cases Ready Resolve Translate Impatience

Book:Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

Source: Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

“Fashion is custom in the guise of departure from custom”

Fashion Customs Departure Guise

Book:Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

Source: Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality

About the Author

Born: January 26, 1884
Died: February 4, 1939
Known for: Anthropologist
Quotes: 39

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Books & Sources

General LinguisticsRelated source material

Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and PersonalityRelated source material

Culture, Language and PersonalityRelated source material

Culture, Language, and Personality: Selected EssaysRelated source material

LanguageRelated source material

Selected Writings in Language, Culture and PersonalityRelated source material

Selected Writings of Edward SapirRelated source material

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