The Radical Linguist Noam Chomsky

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June 10, 2012

a project of ServiceSpace

When did the rain explain "drink" to the earth,
and the earth explain "grow" to the seed?
Who taught the brook the concept of "mirth"
and who explained "bend" to the reed?

- Pavi Mehta -

The Radical Linguist Noam Chomsky

For centuries experts held that every language is unique. Then one day in 1956, a young linguistics professor gave a legendary presentation at MIT. He argued that every intelligible sentence conforms not only to the rules of its particular language but to a universal grammar that encompasses all languages. And rather than absorbing language from the environment and learning to communicate by imitation, children are born with the innate capacity to master language, a power imbued in our species by evolution itself. Almost overnight, linguists' thinking began to shift." In this article Noam Chomsky shares more. { read more }