Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir
Edward Sapirwas an American anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the early development of the discipline of linguistics...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth26 January 1884
CountryUnited States of America
attitude men independence
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.
acceptance mind spirit
What fetters the mind and benumbs the spirit is ever the dogged acceptance of absolutes.
lying hands desire
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.
fashion departure customs
Fashion is custom in the guise of departure from custom
simplicity analysis helping
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.
fashion wish want
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.
simplicity nouns verbs
One of the glories of English simplicity is the possibility of using the same word as noun and verb.
psychology way different
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.
expression perfect would-be
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.
sacrifice demand facts
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.
past light done
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.
simplicity example limits
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.
expression world common
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.
matter facts language
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.