Edward Sapir

Language is a guide to social reality. Though language is not ordinarily thought of as of essential interest to the student of social science, it powerfully conditions all our thinking about social problems and processes. Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group.

No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.

The feeling for form, for the symmetrical, for the typical, for the rhythmic, for the beautiful, is not a luxury of the human spirit, but a necessity.

All cultural behavior is patterned. This is as true of the infinitesimal details of daily life as of the largest cultural configurations.

Language is the most massive and inclusive art we know, a mountainous and anonymous work of unconscious generations.

The true locus of culture is in the interactions of specific individuals and, on the subjective side, in the world of meanings which each one of these individuals may unconsciously abstract from his participation in these interactions.

The great cultural patterns of mankind are not, as we are so often told, a product of the 'race mind' or of the 'group mind' but are, in the last analysis, the product of the individual mind, working in a social setting.

It is not too much to say that the study of language is a study of the most fundamental and characteristic of human activities.

The world of our experience is not merely 'given' to us, but is in a sense constructed by us on the basis of the linguistic habits of our group.

Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.

The more we try to understand a culture, the more we are forced to see it as a complex of interweaving patterns, each of which has its own history and its own meaning.

The 'primitive' mind is not a crude or undeveloped mind; it is a mind that has developed along different lines, and its products are often as complex and subtle as those of our own civilization.

The forms of a language are not merely a vehicle for the expression of thought, but are in themselves a factor in the shaping of thought.

Culture is not a biologically inherited complex of behavior patterns; it is a social heritage, transmitted from generation to generation through the medium of language and other symbolic systems.

The linguistic forms of a people are not merely a reflection of their culture, but are also a determinant of it.

The individual is not merely a passive recipient of culture, but is an active participant in its creation and modification.

Language is a system of symbols, and the meaning of these symbols is not inherent in them, but is assigned to them by the users of the language.

The study of language is not merely a study of words and grammar, but is a study of the human mind and its workings.

The unconscious patterning of behavior is a fundamental characteristic of human culture.

The more we know about language, the more we realize how little we know about the human mind.