Edward Sapir Quotes

Language is the most massive and inclusive art we know, a mountainous and anonymous work of unconscious generations.

Nonverbal communication is an elaborate secret code that is written nowhere, known by none, and understood by all.

We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.

Language is an anonymous, collective and unconscious art; the result of the creativity of thousands of generations.

Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society.

The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group.

No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality.

In a sense, every form of expression is imposed upon one by social factors, one's own language above all.

It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection.

What fetters the mind and benumbs the spirit is ever the dogged acceptance of absolutes.

Cultural anthropology is not valuable because it uncovers the archaic in the psychological sense. It is valuable because it is constantly rediscovering the normal.

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 conveyed in any language. If a notion is lacking in a given series, it implies a different configuration and not a lack of expressive power.

One of the glories of English simplicity is the possibility of using the same word as noun and verb.

Fashion is custom in the guise of departure from custom

A standard international language should not only be simple, regular, and logical, but also rich and creative.

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.

English, once accepted as an international language, is no more secure than French has proved to be as the one and only accepted language of diplomacy or as Latin has proved to be as the international language of science.

It is no secret that the fruits of language study are in no sort of relation to the labour spent on teaching and learning them.

No important national language, at least in the Occidental world, has complete regularity of grammatical structure, nor is there a single logical category which is adequately and consistently handled in terms of linguistic symbolism.

National languages are all huge systems of vested interests which sullenly resist critical inquiry.

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.

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.

Comparison of statements made at different periods frequently enable us to give maximal and minimal dates to the appearance of a cultural element or to assign the time limits to a movement of population.

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.

So far as the advocates of a constructed international language are concerned, it is rather to be wondered at how much in common their proposals actually have, both in vocabulary and in general spirit of procedure.