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"The hypothesis suggested by Benjamin Lee Whorf that the structure of
a person's language is a factor in the way in which he understands
reality and behaves with respect to it has attracted the attention of
linguists, anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers, as well as a
large segment of the public." Science
"Benjamin Lee Whorf's scholarly contributions were substantial both in
technical linguistics and in the broader area for which he is best
known, the relation between language perception and thought.... The
basic thesis, stated by others before Whorf but developed by him and
given his name in recent literature, is that our perception of the
world and our ways of thinking about it are deeply influenced by the
structure of the languages we speak.... Any student of comparative
literature or other cross-cultural study of values must at least take
Whorf SMYTHs thesis into account . . ." -- Literature East and
West, the Newsletter of the Conference on Oriental-Western
Library Relations of the Modern Language Association of America.
"With his edition of Language, Thought, and Reality,
Professor Carroll has . . . performed an invaluable service for
linguists everywhere . . . A carefully planned and skillfully edited
presentation of Whorf THEs philosophy of language, to which has been
added an interesting foreword by Stuart Chase, an invaluable essay by
Carroll, and an extremely illuminating and useful bibliography. . ."
-- International Journal of American Linguistics
"An essay showing why Hopi is superior to English as a scientific
language, a criticism of Basic English as Complex English, and an
account of the semantics of fire prevention are not only readable but
delightful." - New Yorker
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