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12 - Third and Fourth Generations of American Humboldtians at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Linguistic and Cultural Relativism (Boas, Kroeber, and Sapir)

from Part IV - Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Impact on Americanist Linguistics and Anthropology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2024

Emanuel J. Drechsel
Affiliation:
University of Hawaii, Manoa
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Summary

The third and fourth generations consisted of Franz Boas and his prime students, Alfred L. Kroeber and Edward Sapir, reflecting a distinctly Humboldtian perspective from the century’s turn through the years before World War II. Boas had still grown up in the Humboldtian tradition of Theodor Waitz, Adolf Bastian, and Wilhelm Wundt in Germany, and had even consulted Heymann Steinthal. In the United States, Boas offered the first doctoral anthropology program at Columbia University, presenting linguistics in traditional Humboldtian terms and with Kroeber and Sapir as early beneficiaries. When joining Boas’ graduate program, Sapir already brought along Humboldtian notions from his undergraduate Germanic linguistics, eventually to lead to some theoretical differences with Boas about the interpretation of language change (with Kroeber frequently taking an intermediate position). All together, the Boasian program of anthropological linguistics however reflected closely Humboldt’s ideas a century ago, although Boasians did not advertise their historical link.

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Wilhelm von Humboldt and Early American Linguistics
Resources and Inspirations
, pp. 252 - 282
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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