The elements of language [...] must therefore be associated with whole groups [...] of experience rather than with the single experiences themselves. Only so is communication possible, for the single experience lodges in an individual consciousness and is, strictly speaking, incommunicable. To be communicated it needs to be referred to a class [...] accepted by the community as an identity.
- Sapir (1921), a pag.12

Communication [...] is the very object of speech [...]
- Sapir (1921), a pag.18

Communication [...] is successfully effected only when the hearer's auditory perceptions are translated into the appropriate and intended flow of imagery and thought, or both combined.
- Sapir (1921), a pag.18

[...] all voluntary communication of ideas, aside from normal speech, is either a transfer, direct or indirect, from the typical symbolism of language as spoken and heard or, at the least, involves the intermediary of truly linguistic symbolism.
- Sapir (1921), a pag.21

The world of image and concept, the endless and ever-shifting picture of objective reality, is the unavoidable subject-matter of human communication, for it is only [...] in terms of this world that effective action is possible.
- Sapir (1921), a pag.39