Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States. Born in German Pomerania, in what is now northern Poland, his family emigrated to the United States of America when he was a child. He studied Germanic linguistics at Columbia, where he came under the influence of Franz Boas, who inspired him to work on Native American languages.
Career Journey
Background
- Born in
- Lębork
- Educated at
- DeWitt Clinton High SchoolColumbia UniversityStuyvesant High School
- Awards
- 🏆 Person of National Historic Significance🏆 Sterling Professor
- Doctoral Advisors
- 🎓 Franz Boas
- Doctoral Students
- 📖 Benjamin Lee Whorf
Trending & Selected Quotes
Trending topics shown first"Cultural anthropology is not valuable because it uncovers the archaic in the psychological sense. It is valuable because it is constantly rediscovering the normal."
"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."
"Getting down to brass tacks, how in the Hell are you going to explain general American n- 'I' except genetically? It's disturbing, I know, but non-committal conservatism is only dodging, after all, is…"
"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."
"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 co…"
Works & Publications
No works or publications documented yet.
Timeline
1884
Born
Birth1939
Died
Death
Influenced By
Thinkers whose ideas shaped Edward's philosophy
No known influences documented.
Influenced
Thinkers whose work was shaped by Edward's ideas
No influenced thinkers documented yet.
Source Attribution
Information about Edward Sapir is sourced from curated knowledge bases and cross-referenced for accuracy. Influence relationships are scored by thematic overlap and historical plausibility.
