Edward Sapir

Language (Dodo Press) Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir (1884-1939) was an American anthropologist-linguist, a leader in American structural linguistics, and one of the creators of what is now called the Sapir- Whorf hypothesis. He was one of the first who explored the relations between language studies and anthropology. Some suggestions of Sapir about the influence of language on the ways in which people think were adopted and developed by Whorf. His special focus among American languages was in the Athabaskan languages. Sapir was a pioneer of the Yiddish (his native language) studies in the United States. He was also involved in the international auxiliary language movement. In his paper The Function of an International Auxiliary Language, Sapir argued for the benefits of a regular grammar and advocated a critical focus on the fundamentals of language unbiased by the idiosyncrasies of national languages in the choice of an international auxiliary language. Amongst his famous works are Wishram Texts (ed 1909), Dreams and Gibes (1917) and Language (1921).