Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir died in his fifty-sixth year on February fourth.The heart condition of which he died had been diagnosed about five years before but caused serious trouble for the first time in the summer of 1937 when Sapir was in Ann Arbor teaching in the Linguistic Institute.The enthusiasm and energy which he put into his teaching and scientific discussion and his cordiality in social contact with colleagues and students sapped his strength and brought on a heart attack.During the few previous years while under a doctor's regimen of general quiet and relaxation, his intellectual enthusiasm could not be held within the restraints which his physical condition demanded.Sapir was born in Lauenberg, Germany, January 26, 1884.When he was only four, his father, Jacob Sapir, migrated to the United States to carry on his profession of cantor.Edward Sapir early showed scholarly ability, musical sense, and literary talent, and won a four-year Pulitzer fellowship for study in Columbia University.He became interested in linguistic science and took a master's degree in Germanic.About this time he came into contact with Franz Boas, dean of American anthropologists and virtually the initiator of strict scientific method in American linguistics.Boas had a profound influence on Sapir, and particularly impressed upon him the need for a broad knowledge of languages of varying structures.He has told us how he came away from a conference with Boas impressed that he had everything to learn about language.For every generalization he had before believed was certain and exceptionless, Boas could summon indubitable contrary examples from American Indian languages he knew.Sapir was also impressed with the possibilities of inductive study of living languages by phonetic recording from native speakers.This led him into the field at least fourteen times to study such languages as Chinook (Wishram dialect), Yana (three dialects), Tlingit, Nootka, Sarcee, Kutchin, Ingalik, Hupa, Navaho, Southern Paiute.