Conversation so far:
Where did Benjamin Lee Whorf attend college?
Whorf took Sapir's first course at Yale on "American Indian Linguistics".
What year did he attend Yale?
CANNOTANSWER.
Why did he take American Indian Linguistics?
nominally working towards a PhD in linguistics, but he never actually attempted to obtain a degree, satisfying himself with participating in the intellectual community around Sapir.
Why was he interested in the community around Sapir?
At Yale, Whorf joined the circle of Sapir's students that included such luminary linguists as Morris Swadesh, Mary Haas, Harry Hoijer, G.
L.
Trager and Charles F.
Voegelin.
Was he influenced by anyone at Yale?
Sapir had a profound influence on Whorf's thinking.
Sapir's earliest writings had espoused views of the relation between thought and language stemming from the Humboldtian tradition.

Question: What is the Humboldtian tradition?
Self-contained rewrite: What is the Humboldtian tradition?