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Edward Sapir: Linguist, Anthropologist, Humanist
Although he is referred to as a "genius" more often than any other scholar of his period, Edward Sapir has received no full-scale biography since his death in 1939. At long last Regna Darnell provides a comprehensive assessment of the life, ideas, and wide-ranging interests of this remarkable man.
Sapir, the foremost linguist and anthropologist of his generation, contributed substantially to the professionalization of linguistics as an independent discipline. He was the first to apply comparative Indo-European methods to the study of American Indian languages, on which he conducted extensive fieldwork. His theoretical work on the relationship of the individual personality to culture remains fundamental to culture theory in anthropology, as does his insistence on the symbolic nature of culture and the importance of culture as understood by its members, in their own words.
Sapir became the first professional anthropologist in Canada and teacher of a whole generation of linguists and anthropologists at Chicago and Yale. Holding to a humanistic view of anthropology (his own work included poetry and literary criticism), he was the most articulate spokesman for the interdisciplinary social science of the late 1920s and 1930s. In both linguistics and anthropology Sapir is a revered master whose ideas continue to inspire discussion and research. A sixteen-volume Collected Works is now in progress.
Sapir, the foremost linguist and anthropologist of his generation, contributed substantially to the professionalization of linguistics as an independent discipline. He was the first to apply comparative Indo-European methods to the study of American Indian languages, on which he conducted extensive fieldwork. His theoretical work on the relationship of the individual personality to culture remains fundamental to culture theory in anthropology, as does his insistence on the symbolic nature of culture and the importance of culture as understood by its members, in their own words.
Sapir became the first professional anthropologist in Canada and teacher of a whole generation of linguists and anthropologists at Chicago and Yale. Holding to a humanistic view of anthropology (his own work included poetry and literary criticism), he was the most articulate spokesman for the interdisciplinary social science of the late 1920s and 1930s. In both linguistics and anthropology Sapir is a revered master whose ideas continue to inspire discussion and research. A sixteen-volume Collected Works is now in progress.
499 pages, Hardcover
First published December 15, 1989
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September 17, 2025
This biography is a feast for anyone who, like me, is enthralled by extraordinary achievements of exceptional individuals. Over a regrettably short life, Edward Sapir accomplished more than seems humanly possible, due to a combination of undoubted genius and extraordinary degree of drive. It was probably the latter that contributed to his eventual illness and untimely death.
Among his many accomplishments, Sapir was the driving force behind the professionalization of Linguistics as a vitally important component of Anthropology, rather than a fragmented sub-discipline within individual language departments. His breadth and depth of knowledge, research and pedagogy across all of the Indo-European and near-east languages of the Old World—but even more importantly, well over 350 North American aboriginal languages—remains unparalleled. By recording and creating lexicons, grammars (and even typewriter keyboards) for dozens of previously unwritten Amerindian languages and dialects, he made possible the preservation of those languages, many of which would otherwise have become extinct; and hence, the preservation of entire native cultures. Many First Nations communities today are able to teach successive generations their own languages, largely due to Sapir’s influence.
Authenticity and academic rigor mattered deeply to Edward Sapir. In his own words, he objected to “smoothed-over” versions of native culture. “I like the stuff in the raw, as felt and dictated by the natives … the genuine, difficult, confusing primary sources.” He was, first and foremost, a researcher, and is best remembered today for his classification of the hundreds of Amerindian languages into just six units, based on their roots and their shared structural and phonetic characteristics. The fact that his proposed classification remains in dispute today can best be attributed to Sapir’s untimely demise, and the inability of subsequent researchers, over the succeeding 80-plus years, to arrive at a more convincing classification.
Early in his career, Sapir left the USA to take on a position in Canada, as Chief Ethnologist of the Anthropological Division of the Geological Survey of Canada. From 1910 to 1925, he and his team were deeply engaged in researching, documenting and preserving native languages across Canada. What I find most baffling is that concurrently, that same government (with the active participation of both Catholic and Protestant churches) was doing everything in its power to eradicate native languages and culture, by abducting aboriginal children and confining them in residential schools where they were compelled to forget their native languages and condemn their cultural heritage. Hopefully, Edward Sapir was able to offset, through his efforts, some small part of the damage our government did. In fairness, it seems that the US government was equally self-contradictory in its policies.
This is far more than the biography of a man; it offers an education in the history and development of cultural anthropology and linguistics in North America over the early 20th century, by following the career of that man, who became a central figure in that sphere. Along the way, it brings into focus the actions of many dozens of prominent researchers, pedagogues and social scientists of that era. It required the insight and diligence of Regna Darnell, a prominent anthropologist in her own right, to compile such a document. In so doing, she also managed to make this a compellingly readable story, far from a dry dissertation, despite its prominent embedded notes.
My brief review cannot possibly do justice to a book of such scope. Five stars.
Among his many accomplishments, Sapir was the driving force behind the professionalization of Linguistics as a vitally important component of Anthropology, rather than a fragmented sub-discipline within individual language departments. His breadth and depth of knowledge, research and pedagogy across all of the Indo-European and near-east languages of the Old World—but even more importantly, well over 350 North American aboriginal languages—remains unparalleled. By recording and creating lexicons, grammars (and even typewriter keyboards) for dozens of previously unwritten Amerindian languages and dialects, he made possible the preservation of those languages, many of which would otherwise have become extinct; and hence, the preservation of entire native cultures. Many First Nations communities today are able to teach successive generations their own languages, largely due to Sapir’s influence.
Authenticity and academic rigor mattered deeply to Edward Sapir. In his own words, he objected to “smoothed-over” versions of native culture. “I like the stuff in the raw, as felt and dictated by the natives … the genuine, difficult, confusing primary sources.” He was, first and foremost, a researcher, and is best remembered today for his classification of the hundreds of Amerindian languages into just six units, based on their roots and their shared structural and phonetic characteristics. The fact that his proposed classification remains in dispute today can best be attributed to Sapir’s untimely demise, and the inability of subsequent researchers, over the succeeding 80-plus years, to arrive at a more convincing classification.
Early in his career, Sapir left the USA to take on a position in Canada, as Chief Ethnologist of the Anthropological Division of the Geological Survey of Canada. From 1910 to 1925, he and his team were deeply engaged in researching, documenting and preserving native languages across Canada. What I find most baffling is that concurrently, that same government (with the active participation of both Catholic and Protestant churches) was doing everything in its power to eradicate native languages and culture, by abducting aboriginal children and confining them in residential schools where they were compelled to forget their native languages and condemn their cultural heritage. Hopefully, Edward Sapir was able to offset, through his efforts, some small part of the damage our government did. In fairness, it seems that the US government was equally self-contradictory in its policies.
This is far more than the biography of a man; it offers an education in the history and development of cultural anthropology and linguistics in North America over the early 20th century, by following the career of that man, who became a central figure in that sphere. Along the way, it brings into focus the actions of many dozens of prominent researchers, pedagogues and social scientists of that era. It required the insight and diligence of Regna Darnell, a prominent anthropologist in her own right, to compile such a document. In so doing, she also managed to make this a compellingly readable story, far from a dry dissertation, despite its prominent embedded notes.
My brief review cannot possibly do justice to a book of such scope. Five stars.
April 8, 2017
This is an extraordinary biography! Regna Darnell not only brings Edward Sapir to life, but she also manages to capture the early years of cultural anthropology in the United States - the excitement, the adventure and the struggle. At the end of this comprehensive examination of a complicated and brilliant man we readers are left truly saddened by his inability to fulfill the promise of his youth.
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