Lauenburg, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire (now Lębork, Poland)
Died
February 4, 1939(1939-02-04) (aged 55)
New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Citizenship
United States
Known for
Classification of Native American languages Linguistic relativity Anthropological linguistics
Academic background
Alma mater
Columbia University (AB, AM, PhD)
Thesis
The Takelma Language of Southwestern Oregon (1909)
Doctoral advisor
Franz Boas
Academic work
Discipline
Linguist, anthropologist
Institutions
University of Chicago Canadian Museum of Civilization Columbia University Yale University
Doctoral students
Li Fang-Kuei Mary Haas Morris Swadesh Kenneth Pike Harry Hoijer Leslie A. White Robert Redfield Stanley Newman J. David Sapir Charles Hockett John Dollard
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Edward Sapir (/səˈpɪər/; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) 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.[1][2]
Sapir was 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. While finishing his Ph.D. he went to California to work with Alfred Kroeber documenting the indigenous languages there. He was employed by the Geological Survey of Canada for fifteen years, where he came into his own as one of the most significant linguists in North America, the other being Leonard Bloomfield. He was offered a professorship at the University of Chicago, and stayed for several years continuing to work for the professionalization of the discipline of linguistics. By the end of his life he was professor of anthropology at Yale. Among his many students were the linguists Mary Haas and Morris Swadesh, and anthropologists such as Fred Eggan and Hortense Powdermaker.
With his linguistic background, Sapir became the one student of Boas to develop most completely the relationship between linguistics and anthropology. Sapir studied the ways in which language and culture influence each other, and he was interested in the relation between linguistic differences, and differences in cultural world views. This part of his thinking was developed by his student Benjamin Lee Whorf into the principle of linguistic relativity or the "Sapir–Whorf" hypothesis. In anthropology Sapir is known as an early proponent of the importance of psychology to anthropology, maintaining that studying the nature of relationships between different individual personalities is important for the ways in which culture and society develop.[3]
Among his major contributions to linguistics is his classification of Indigenous languages of the Americas, upon which he elaborated for most of his professional life. He played an important role in developing the modern concept of the phoneme, greatly advancing the understanding of phonology.
Before Sapir it was generally considered impossible to apply the methods of historical linguistics to languages of indigenous peoples because they were believed to be more primitive than the Indo-European languages. Sapir was the first to prove that the methods of comparative linguistics were equally valid when applied to indigenous languages. In the 1929 edition of Encyclopædia Britannica he published what was then the most authoritative classification of Native American languages, and the first based on evidence from modern comparative linguistics. He was the first to produce evidence for the classification of the Algic, Uto-Aztecan, and Na-Dene languages. He proposed some language families that are not considered to have been adequately demonstrated, but which continue to generate investigation such as Hokan and Penutian.
He specialized in the study of Athabascan languages, Chinookan languages, and Uto-Aztecan languages, producing important grammatical descriptions of Takelma, Wishram, Southern Paiute. Later in his career he also worked with Yiddish, Hebrew, and Chinese, as well as Germanic languages, and he also was invested in the development of an International Auxiliary Language.
^"Edward Sapir". Encyclopædia Britannica. 31 January 2024.
^Sapir, Edward. (2005). In Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science. www.credoreference.com/entry/wileycs/sapir_edward
^Moore, Jerry D. 2009. "Edward Sapir: Culture, Language, and the Individual" in Visions of Culture: an Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists, Walnut Creek, California: Altamira. pp. 88–104
EdwardSapir (/səˈpɪər/; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important...
them. Although common, the term Sapir–Whorf hypothesis is sometimes considered a misnomer for several reasons: EdwardSapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf never...
conceptualize the world. Whorf saw this idea, named after him and his mentor EdwardSapir, as having implications similar to those of Einstein's principle of physical...
areas. The concept became part of linguistic typology with the work of EdwardSapir, who used it as one of his basic typological categories. Recently, Mark...
Canadian style of anthropology. Scholars include the linguist and Boasian EdwardSapir. Anthropology in France has a less clear genealogy than the British and...
role in linguistics, as the background for a famous article by linguist EdwardSapir and his collaborator Tony Tillohash on the nature of the phoneme. The...
are in accordance to those developed by the ethnologist and linguist EdwardSapir, and used by the Canadian Museum of Civilization. These people traditionally...
students were A. L. Kroeber, Alexander Goldenweiser, Ruth Benedict, EdwardSapir, Margaret Mead, Zora Neale Hurston, and Gilberto Freyre. Boas was one...
by EdwardSapir. Around 1920 Sapir became convinced that Na-Dené was more closely related to Sino-Tibetan than to other American families. Edward Vadja's...
referred to as "Algonquian-Ritwan" and "Wiyot-Yurok-Algonquian." When EdwardSapir proposed that the well-established Algonquian family was genetically...
the German-American linguist EdwardSapir in his graduate thesis, The Takelma Language of Southwestern Oregon (1912). Sapir’s grammar together with his Takelma...
Banning, California. EdwardSapir. 1930. Southern Paiute, a Shoshonean Language. Reprinted in 1992 in: The Collected Works of EdwardSapir, X, Southern Paiute...
Sapir, Edward; Golla, Victor (2001). "Hupa Texts, with Notes and Lexicon". In Golla, Victor; O'Neill, Sean (eds.). Collected Works of EdwardSapir. Vol...
Tsimshian, Nisg̱a’a, and Gitksan. The Tsimshianic languages were included by EdwardSapir in his Penutian hypothesis, which is currently not widely accepted, at...
Bradley, and both championed MacDowell's piano compositions. The linguist EdwardSapir was also among his students. MacDowell was often stressed in his position...
master's degrees at the University of Chicago, studying under EdwardSapir, and then followed Sapir to Yale University where he completed a Ph.D. in 1933. Swadesh...
native Yana language, which was recorded and studied by the linguist EdwardSapir, who had previously done work on the northern dialects. These wax cylinders...
point" for Haida scholars in the future. In 2004, Bringhurst won the EdwardSapir Prize for Masterworks of the Classical Haida Mythtellers. The committee...
(born on Kaibab, Utah) was a Paiute Indian who worked with linguist EdwardSapir to describe the Southern Paiute language. In 1910, Tillohash was removed...
dialects died is not recorded. Yana is fairly well documented, mostly by EdwardSapir. The names Yana and Yahi are derived from ya "people" plus an obligatory...
to language". Language, Culture, and Personality: Essays in Honor of EdwardSapir. Taylor, Walter (1948). A Study of Archeology. Memoir 69, American Anthropological...
worked for six weeks as language consultant with linguist EdwardSapir to document the language. Sapir gives her Takelma name as Gwísgwashãn (phonemically Kʷìskʷasá:n...
had a short affair with the linguist EdwardSapir, a close friend of her instructor Ruth Benedict. However, Sapir's conservative stances about marriage...
structuralists like Ferdinand de Saussure, EdwardSapir, and Leonard Bloomfield. Some structuralists (though not Sapir) rejected the idea of a cognitive or...
language, were first identified as relatives of the Algonquian languages by EdwardSapir in 1913, though this classification was disputed for decades in what...
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