How did Edward Sapir connect language with culture and worldview?

Edward Sapir, a foundational figure in ethnolinguistics, proposed that humans perceive the world principally through the lens of their language. He argued that language is not merely a tool for communication but a framework that shapes how individuals experience reality.12

Sapir believed that a rigorous analysis of a language's structure and its function in speech could provide deep insights into human cognitive and perceptive faculties. By examining these linguistic structures, he sought to explain the diverse behaviors observed among peoples from different cultural backgrounds.12

His work laid the groundwork for what later became known as the Whorfian hypothesis, or linguistic relativity, which explores how the specific grammar and vocabulary of a language influence a speaker's worldview. While Sapir focused on the relationship between language, culture, and personality, his student Benjamin Lee Whorf later expanded these ideas into a more formal hypothesis regarding how language structures influence thought and perception.21