Edward Sapir Quotes - Page 2

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• The spirit of logical analysis should in practice blend with the practical pressure for the adoption of some form of international language, but it should not allow itself to be stampeded by it.

  Edward Sapir

  Practice, Adoption, Analysis

  Edward Sapir (1949). “Culture, Language, and Personality: Selected Essays”, p.64, Univ of California Press

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• 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.

  Edward Sapir

  Lying, Hands, Desire

  Edward Sapir, David Goodman Mandelbaum (1985). “Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality”, p.111, Univ of California Press

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• Cultural anthropology is more and more rapidly getting to realize itself as a strictly historical science.

  Edward Sapir

  Historical, Realizing, Anthropology

  Edward Sapir, David Goodman Mandelbaum (1985). “Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality”, p.391, Univ of California Press

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• More and more, unsolicited gifts from without are likely to be received with unconscious resentment.

  Edward Sapir

  Resentment, Unconscious

  Edward Sapir, Pierre Swiggers (2008). “General Linguistics”, p.277, Walter de Gruyter

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• Both French and Latin are involved with nationalistic and religious implications which could not be entirely shaken off, and so, while they seemed for a long time to have solved the international language problem up to a certain point, they did not really do so in spirit.

  Edward Sapir

  Religious, Latin, Long

  Edward Sapir, Pierre Swiggers (2008). “General Linguistics”, p.277, Walter de Gruyter

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• Were a language ever completely "grammatical" it would be a perfect engine of conceptual expression. Unfortunately, or luckily, no language is tyrannically consistent. All grammars leak.

  Edward Sapir

  Expression, Perfect, Would Be

  Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech ch. 2 (1921)

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• It would, of course, be hopeless to attempt to crowd into an international language all those local overtones of meaning which are so dear to the heart of the nationalist.

  Edward Sapir

  Heart, Crowds, Language

  Edward Sapir, Pierre Swiggers (2008). “General Linguistics”, p.281, Walter de Gruyter

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• A firm, for instance, that does business in many countries of the world is driven to spend an enormous amount of time, labour, and money in providing for translation services.

  Edward Sapir

  Country, Countries Of The World, Doe

  Edward Sapir (1968). “Selected Writings of Edward Sapir”, p.111, Univ of California Press

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• A second type of direct evidence is formed by statements, whether as formal legends or personal information, regarding the age or relative sequence of events in tribal history made by the natives themselves.

  Edward Sapir

  Age, Events, Legends

  Edward Sapir, David Goodman Mandelbaum (1985). “Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality”, p.395, Univ of California Press

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• A common allegiance to form of expression that is identified with no single national unit is likely to prove one of the most potent symbols of the freedom of the human spirit that the world has yet known.

  Edward Sapir

  Expression, World, Spirit

  Edward Sapir, Pierre Swiggers (2008). “General Linguistics”, p.282, Walter de Gruyter

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• The psychology of a language which, in one way or another, is imposed upon one because of factors beyond one's control, is very different from the psychology of a language which one accepts of one's free will.

  Edward Sapir

  Psychology, Different, Way

  Edward Sapir, Pierre Swiggers (2008). “General Linguistics”, p.277, Walter de Gruyter

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• These examples of the lack of simplicity in English and French, all appearances to the contrary, could be multiplied almost without limit and apply to all national languages.

  Edward Sapir

  Simplicity, Limits, Example

  Edward Sapir, David Goodman Mandelbaum (1985). “Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality”, p.117, Univ of California Press

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• A common creation demands a common sacrifice, and perhaps not the least potent argument in favour of a constructed international language is the fact that it is equally foreign, or apparently so, to the traditions of all nationalities.

  Edward Sapir

  Sacrifice, Demand, Facts

  Edward Sapir, David Goodman Mandelbaum (1985). “Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality”, p.112, Univ of California Press

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• A logical analysis of reflexive usages in French shows, however, that this simplicity is an illusion and that, so far from helping the foreigner, it is more calculated to bother him.

  Edward Sapir

  Simplicity, Analysis, Helping

  Edward Sapir, Pierre Swiggers (2008). “General Linguistics”, p.280, Walter de Gruyter

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