Benjamin Lee Whorf
✓ Source-basedstableAmerican linguist (1897-1941)
Benjamin Atwood Lee Whorf was an American linguist and fire prevention engineer best known for proposing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. He believed that the structures of different languages shape how their speakers perceive and conceptualize the world.
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Edward Sapir, Whorf's mentor in linguistics at Yale
Whorf's illustration of the difference between the English and Shawnee gestalt construction of cleaning a gun with a ramrod. From the article "Language and Science", originally published in the MIT technology Review, 1940. Image copyright of MIT Press.Academics from United States 6
About this person
Benjamin Atwood Lee Whorf was an American linguist and fire prevention engineer best known for proposing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. He believed that the structures of different languages shape how their speakers perceive and conceptualize the world. Whorf saw this idea, named after him and his mentor Edward Sapir, as having implications similar to those of Einstein's principle of physical relativity. However, the concept originated from 19th-century philosophy and thinkers like Wilhelm von Humboldt and Wilhelm Wundt.
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