Hospitalised after stroke, Noam Chomsky stands firm on Gaza's plight

Noted American academic and one of the world's most well-known public intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, has been hospitalised following complications after suffering a massive stroke last year, his Brazilian wife confirmed to media.

Valeria Chomsky said via email that her 95-year-old husband is in a Sao Paulo hospital, where he was taken in an air ambulance following the June 2023 stroke. The couple has had a residence in Brazil since 2015.

Valeria confirmed the details of a Monday report in the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, which said her husband has difficulty speaking and his body is affected. He is currently being attended to by a team of neurologists, speech therapists and lung specialists.

She told the newspaper that her husband follows news on Palestine and when he sees images of the war in Gaza, he raises his left arm in a gesture of lament and anger.

Just before Chomsky was rendered incapable, he told Al Jazeera in an interview that Israel's brutal siege and deadly invasion in Gaza constitute one of the most significant crimes of the contemporary era.

Global symbol of protest

Chomsky has been a leading critic of American foreign policy and is seen by millions around the world as a symbol of protest and independence.

As an influential scholar and critic who has frequently challenged US policy on everything from the Middle East to Central America, as well as a compliant media, his books and essays are read and discussed by students, scholars and the press around the world.

Known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism, Chomsky has been hailed as "the father of modern linguistics."

As a longtime faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he transformed the study of linguistics with his landmark 1957 book, “Syntactic Structures,” in which he wrote that humans do not simply learn language but are born with an innate ability that explains how they can formulate and understand sentences never seen or heard before.

An indelible mark

Famed for concepts like Chomsky hierarchy, generative grammar, and the notion of a universal grammar, Chomsky's profound contributions have permeated diverse realms, including cognitive science, philosophy, psychology, computer science, mathematics, and anthropology, leaving an indelible mark on the everyday life of humankind.

He authored the pivotal "context-free grammar" algorithm, omnipresent in computer programming languages, and the backbone of modern language-understanding programmes like Siri.

Chomsky's legacy spans several biographies, numerous interviews across popular media platforms, and special appearances in countless documentaries.