Author Archive

Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir was an American linguist and anthropologist known for his work on Native American languages and for shaping modern linguistics as a cultural and mental science. His major works include Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech (1921) and the posthumously collected Selected Writings in Language, Culture, and Personality (1949), which influenced debates on language, culture, and personality. He is also associated with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the idea that language shapes habitual thought, though his own formulations were more cautious than Whorf's.

28 summaries in the archive

Anthropology Native Accounts of Nootka Ethnography – Edward Sapir Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir and Morris Swadesh present bilingual Nuu-chah-nulth narratives describing life on western Vancouver Island in the speakers'…

6 min read

Anthropology Religious Life – Edward Sapir Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir contributes to this 1920s essay collection on religion, framed by editor Baker Brownell as an inquiry…

19 min read

Anthropology International Communication – Edward Sapir Edward Sapir

A 1920s symposium in which Shenton, Sapir, and Jespersen examine the language barrier and the case for an…

5 min read

Anthropology The Sapir-Kroeber Correspondence – Edward Sapir Edward Sapir

A documentary edition of letters exchanged between linguists Edward Sapir and Alfred Kroeber on California's Indigenous languages.

2 min read

Anthropology The Whaling Indians – Edward Sapir Edward Sapir

A bilingual edition of Nuu-chah-nulth oral narratives about whaling and legendary hunters, recorded by Sapir with Alexander Thomas.

4 min read

Anthropology Terms of Relationship and the Levirate – Edward Sapir Edward Sapir

Sapir argues that kinship terms are fossils of social obligation, tracing levirate marriage through the vocabularies of several…

11 min read

Anthropology Kinship Terms of the Kootenay Indians – Edward Sapir Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir's 1916 paper analyzes Kootenay kinship terms gathered from Chief Paul David, examining how sex and reciprocity…

3 min read

Anthropology Minor Vocabularies of Tutelo and Saponi – Edward Sapir Edward Sapir

A compact compilation of surviving Tutelo and Saponi word lists, gathering scattered Siouan lexical materials from Virginia and…

4 min read

Anthropology The Takelma Language of Southwestern Oregon – Edward Sapir Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir's grammatical description of the Takelma language, based on fieldwork with a single speaker in 1906.

17 min read

Anthropology General, Historical-Comparative and Descriptive Linguistics – Edward Sapir Edward Sapir

Volume II of Edward Sapir's Collected Works gathers his writings on general, historical-comparative, and descriptive linguistics, including a…

6 min read

Anthropology Time Perspective in Aboriginal American Culture: A Study in Method – Edward Sapir Edward Sapir

Sapir's 1916 essay is a working manual for inferring chronology in Native American culture from language, myth, and…

18 min read

Anthropology Sketch of the Social Organization of the Nass River Indians – Edward Sapir Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir's 1915 field note records the phratries, crests, and social classes of the Nass River Tsimshian, based…

7 min read

Anthropology The Phonology and Morphology of the Navaho Language – Edward Sapir Edward Sapir

A technical linguistic description of Navaho phonology and morphology, covering sounds, tone, and word structure in this Athabaskan…

3 min read

Anthropology Psychology of Culture – Edward Sapir Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir's lectures explore culture as patterned selection and value, the individual's place within it, and the symbolic…

6 min read

Anthropology Takelma Texts – Edward Sapir Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir's Takelma Texts records myths and customs dictated in 1906 by Frances Johnson, one of the last…

21 min read

Other Works by Edward Sapir

Letters from Edward Sapir to Robert H. Lowie (1965)
John Fredson Edward Sapir Ha'a Googwandak (1995)
Language and Linguistics on CD (2005)