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Chomsky's birth December 7, 1928
Avram Noam Chomsky was born to his parents, Ze'ev "William" Chomsky and Elsie Simonofsky, who were Jewish immigrants; His parents fled from the Russian empire in 1913. Noam was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and lived in the neighborhood of East Oak Lane. After becoming established in Philadelphia, Noam's father became the Congregation Mikveh Israel religious school principal and a faculty member at Gratz College. His mother was a teacher and activist at Mikveh Israel, where they would meet -
Chomsky's Birth Continuation
Which led his father to have a strong passion and desire to become "well-integrated, free and independent in their thinking, concerned about improving and enhancing the world," which his son would also pursue. (Barsky 11) -
Noam university experience
Avram would attend the University of Pennsylvania in 1945 at the age of 16. Avram would begin learning about philosophy, logic, and languages with diminishing interest. Roughly two years into attending university, Avram would consider dropping out to pursue political interests by possibly living on a kibbutz till he came across a Russian-born linguist Zellig Harris who would help reignite his interests. Harris would take graduate classes with Harris and would study philosophy and mathematics. -
Early career / Syntactic Structures
During his time at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Avram would have a pretty busy year with being promoted to assistant professor, also being a visiting professor for Columbia University, and having their first child that same year; a daughter named Aviva, and lastly publishing his first book on linguistics, Syntactic Structures. When his book was published, it challenged the widely accepted ideas of the time. -
Avram Noam Chomsky Theory of Universal grammar
Universal grammar is the theory proposing that humans possess a basic understanding of grammar from birth. As children, we are trying to learn basic vocabulary to form basic sentences seamlessly due to our innate linguistic capacity. -
Citations
“Noam Chomsky.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc./James A. McGilvray, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Noam-Chomsky. “Noam Chomsky.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 June 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky#CITEREFLyons1978. Barsky, Robert F. Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent. MIT Press, 1997. -
YouTube Videos
https://youtu.be/7Cgpfw4z8cw - 1:47 BBC Radio https://youtu.be/7fW_8bDGdX0 - 6:36 Arpita Karwa
