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Article published In: Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 14:1/2 (1987) ► pp.39–60

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Letters from bloomfield to Michelson and Sapir

Editor
 | Cornell University
Published online: 1 January 1987
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https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.14.1-2.07hoc
Summary
Between 1919 and 1930, Leonard Bloomfield corresponded with the anthropologist Truman Michelson (1879–1938) concerning Algonquian linguistics, and between 1924 and 1925 with Edward Sapir (1884–1939), with regard to American Indian languages, linguistic theory, and Bloomfield’s appointment as field-worker for the Canadian Bureau of Mines. The surviving letters are enumerated and discussed, and non-technical portions of them are reproduced, for the light which they shed on three of Bloomfield’s professional concerns: his work in Algonquian; his move from Illinois to Ohio State in 1921 ; and the planning and founding of the Linguistic Society of America in 1924–25. They also afford a few glimpses of his (in general little known) personal life and attitudes.
Résumé
Entre 1919 et 1930, Léonard Bloomfield échangea des lettres avec l’an-tropologue Truman Michelson (1879–1938) à propos des langues algonkien-nes, et entre 1924 et 1925 avec Edward Sapir (1884–1939) à propos des langues amérindiennes, de la théorie générale de la linguistique, et de sa nomination comme investigateur de langues algonkiennes pour le Bureau des Mines canadien. L’auteur décrit et commente les lettres qui nous sont parvenues, et il en reproduit des morceaux non techniques, pour mettre en lumière certains aspects des soucis professionnels de Bloomfield: son travail sur les langues algonkiennes, son déménagement d’Illinois à Ohio State en 1921, et les plans pour la fondation de la Linguistic Society of America en 1924–25. Ces lettres nous permettent aussi d’entrevoir certains aspects (en général peu connus) de sa vie et de ses attitudes personnelles.
References (51)
References
The following alphabetical list includes books, articles, and some of the people referred to in the foregoing (insofar as they are not already adequately identified), together with expansions of abbreviations and explanations of a few possibly puzzling terms. For people, birth and death dates are given when known, with references to sources of further information.
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Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Silverstein, Michael
2003. Charles Francis Hockett (1916–2000). American Anthropologist 105:1 ► pp. 225 ff. DOI logo
Goddard, Ives
1987. Leonard Bloomfield’s descriptive and comparative studies of Algonquian. Historiographia Linguistica 14:1-2 ► pp. 179 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2020. Edward Sapir. In Last Papers in Linguistic Historiography [Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, 128], ► pp. 163 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. Bibliographie. In Aux origines des sciences humaines, ► pp. 865 ff. DOI logo

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