Culture, Language and Personality: Selected Essays

While studying the work of Benjamin Lee Whorf, I took a side trip and read this volume from cover to cover. I came away with enormous respect for Edward Sapir as a thinker and as someone who knew both the pitfalls and privileges of modernity. The articles in the collection are of interest to students of culture, but will reward reading by any thoughtful person. Whorf and Sapir had an interesting relationship. Whorf studied linguistics and anthropology with Sapir at Yale U, with Whorf attending night sessions because of his work at the Hartford Insurance Company. Sapir recognized a bright student when he saw one and took Whorf under his wing. This collection provides a fascinating profile of a sophisticated modern who understood the legitimate purposes of both science and art. My book entitled BENJAMIN LEE WHORF: LOST GENERATION THEORIES OF MIND, LANGUAGE, AND RELIGION and the soon-to-be-released CD-ROM, THE LEGACY OF BENJAMIN LEE WHORF (2008) explore the important differences between these men--whose ideas are often yoked together. (For more on the CD-ROM, see [...] and click on "media." Peter Rollins [email protected]

Sapir's principal field of study was language. This book contains nine essays from the SELECTED WRITINGS OF EDWARD SAPIR IN LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND PERSONALITY. Edward Sapir was born in Lauenberg, Germany in 1884. His early education was is Richmond, Virginia and in New York City. He graduated from Columbia University in 1904 and with Franz Boas's encouragement he took an M.A. in Germany and a Ph.D. in anthropology. Much of his work concerned American Indian languages and culture. Every group of human beings has speech and a well-ordered language. Language is a perfect means of expression. Language is primarily a system of phonetic symbols. Phonetic language takes precedence over other kinds of communicative symbolism. All languages are also phonemic. There are a fixed number of phonetic stations. Languages differ widely in their phonemic structure. The fundamental theory of sound symbolism remains the same everywhere.All grammars have the same degree of fixity. Language is felt to be a perfect symbolic system. Once the form of a language is established it can project potential meanings onto experience. Forms predetermine certain modes of observation. Language interpenetrates actual experience. Language is learned early and piecemeal. It is rarely a purely referential organization.Language is primarily a vocal actualization of the tendancies to see realities symbolically. Language is a great socializer. There is no correspondence between the form of a language and the form of a culture. The cultural significance of a language form is much more submerged.Linguistics began it scientific career with the reconstruction of the Indo-European languages. The value of linguistics to cultural studies and anthropology has been recognized. Language is a guide to social reality. Language may be thought of as a symbolic guide to culture. Psychologists concern themselves with linguistic data. A drawback in applying language to unrelated areas is that language to a very great extent is self-contained. Where interest in language has transcended narrow limits, both historical problems and human behavior need to be studied. Language is primarily a social or cultural product, not a biological product. The culture of the group and the individual are interdependent. The self seeks mastery. What constitutes spiritual serenity must be answered afresh for every culture. Religion does not presuppose a definite belief in God. Cultural anthropology may be useful to psychiatry. This scholarly work, influential to generations of students of human behavior, contains numerous ideas of great interest to the informed general reader. The writing and the theories are not heavy fare. Enjoyment of the work is not limited to those who have training or experience in sociology or anthropology or linguistics. Apparently the book constitutes a fair representation of the man and the scope of his scholarlarship.

After reading the currently available collection of Whorf's work, I became interested in the 'linguistic relativist' position and decided to read this book of Sapir's. However, there is little comparison to be made between the two scholars; Sapir comes off as far deeper and more professional than Whorf, and writes profoundly about a broad range of issues. This book includes writings on anthropology, linguistics, sociology, literary criticism (which I found a little dodgy, to tell the truth), music, etc, etc--and he writes fluently and intriguingly about all of them, with the exception perhaps of poetry, though it may just be a difference of taste that leads me to that conclusion. Anyway some of his most famous essays are included, mostly on linguistics, though the long essay on establishing times of migration etc. of American Indian tribes was extremely interesting and worth any effort put into reading it (it does take some). Anyway, it's worth your time--read it.