Edward Sapir (pronounced /səˈpɪər/), (January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was a German-born American anthropologist-linguist and a leader in American structural linguistics. He was one of the creators of what is now called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. He is arguably the most influential figure in American linguistics, influencing several generations of linguists across several schools of the discipline.
Sapir was born in Lauenburg in Pomerania to...
more
Edward Sapir (pronounced /səˈpɪər/), (January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was a German-born American anthropologist-linguist and a leader in American structural linguistics. He was one of the creators of what is now called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. He is arguably the most influential figure in American linguistics, influencing several generations of linguists across several schools of the discipline.
Sapir was born in Lauenburg in Pomerania to an orthodox Jewish family. His family immigrated to New York in the United States in the late 19th century.
Sapir earned both a B.A. (1904) and an M.A. (1905) in Germanic philology from Columbia. His linguistic interests proved to be much broader.
In the next two years he took up studies of the Wishram and Takelma languages of Native Americans in southwestern Oregon. In 1909 he received his Ph.D. in anthropology, just emerging as a new field of study. While a graduate student at Columbia, Sapir met his mentor, anthropologist Franz Boas. The...
less
