Topic: Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir , 1884-1939, American linguist and anthropologist, b. Pomerania. Sapir was brought to the United States in 1889. After teaching at the Univ. of California and the Univ. of Pennsylvania, he served (1910-25) as chief of the division of anthropology of the Canadian National Museum. He was professor of anthropology at the Univ. of Chicago (1925-31), and of anthropology and linguistics at Yale from 1931 until his death. With his student Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941) he developed the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, arguing that the limits of language restrict the scope of possible thought and... Read more