Benjamin WhorfDied 26 Jul 1941 at age 44 (born 24 Apr 1897).Benjamin Lee Whorf was an American anthropologist and linguist, who originally trained as a chemical engineer (1918), and began work as a fire prevention engineer. As an avocation, he pursued anthropology and studied native American languages. He became well known for his study of the Hopi language. With Sapir, he developed the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis concerning the way that language affects thought. This theory proposed that the language a person speaks (independent of the culture in which he or she resides) affects the way that he or she thinks, meaning that the structure of the language itself affects cognition. His studies, though not all were proven, helped future linguists in their studies. He died at only 44 years old, due to cancer.« |
