Noam Chomsky, the linguist who rewired language and reshaped dissent

Noam Chomsky, born in 1928, reshaped linguistics with the idea that humans are innately equipped for language, then became one of the most cited critics of American power. He is Institute Professor emeritus at MIT and a laureate professor at the University of Arizona. After a major stroke in 2023 he moved his care to São Paulo, Brazil, his wife’s home country, was discharged in June 2024, and remained largely out of public view through 2025, as false death reports were publicly corrected and new scrutiny of his past contacts with Jeffrey Epstein surfaced.

The scientist who changed how we think about language

Chomsky’s early work overturned behaviorist views, arguing that children acquire language with astonishing speed because core principles are built into the mind, not learned from scratch. Syntactic Structures, published in 1957, and a 1959 critique of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior, helped launch the cognitive revolution.

Generative grammar and the Chomsky hierarchy

In 1956 he formalized families of grammars that could generate progressively complex languages, a framework later called the Chomsky hierarchy. It influenced both linguistics and computer science, where context free grammars underpin compilers and standard parsing algorithms.

From Government and Binding to the Minimalist Program

From the late 1970s through the 1990s, Chomsky consolidated his view in Government and Binding, then pared it down in the Minimalist Program, which seeks the simplest possible operations to explain syntax. Proponents say minimalism tightens the theory, critics argue that parts are difficult to test.

Selected milestones

The political writer who challenged power

While transforming linguistics, Chomsky became a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy and media culture. With the late Edward S. Herman he coauthored Manufacturing Consent in 1988, proposing a “propaganda model” in which ownership, advertising, sourcing, flak, and ideology shape which stories rise, and how they are framed.

“The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace.”

Supporters say the model anticipated how incentives and sourcing skew coverage, especially in wartime. Critics call it overly deterministic, noting investigative journalism that challenges elites and ideological diversity among major outlets. Even so, the book remains required reading in media studies and political communication.

Debates that defined his influence

Universal grammar under fire

Field linguist Daniel Everett’s work on the Amazonian Pirahã people argued that culture, not an innate universal grammar, better explains certain features of their language. Chomsky and colleagues disputed the claims and methods, and subsequent critiques challenged Everett’s conclusions. The episode crystallized a broader split between nativist theories and usage based or construction based approaches that stress learning, interaction, and general cognition.

Minimalism, elegance and evidence

Minimalism’s promise, fewer moving parts with more explanatory reach, draws adherents across labs. Skeptics warn that elegant formalisms can outpace testability, and urge tighter links to psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, and large cross linguistic data.

Chomsky on artificial intelligence

In March 2023 Chomsky, with Ian Roberts and Jeffrey Watumull, argued that large language models are powerful pattern matchers, not reasoners that can form explanatory theories.

“True intelligence is demonstrated in the ability to think and express improbable but insightful things.”

Supporters see a valuable reminder that statistical fluency is not understanding. AI researchers counter that reasoning can be approximated with tools layered on top of language models, and that empirical progress may outrun theory.

Reputation, scrutiny and a 2025 status check

Chomsky’s bibliography runs well past one hundred books, his lectures draw global audiences, and his ideas permeate linguistics and parts of cognitive science and computer science. His public record has also drawn criticism over the years, including fierce arguments about Cambodia in the late 1970s and disputes over Balkan war reporting in the 2000s, some of which led to corrections and clarifications by outlets.

In 2024 his family and hospital confirmed he was alive and recuperating, after social media rumors wrongly claimed he had died. In late 2025, emails released by U.S. lawmakers showed he maintained regular contact with Jeffrey Epstein for years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction, and referenced a payment routed from an Epstein linked account during divorce related arrangements. Chomsky has not publicly elaborated on those documents while recovering.

How to read Chomsky now

• For the science: Syntactic Structures, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Lectures on Government and Binding, The Minimalist Program
• For the media critique: Manufacturing Consent, Necessary Illusions
• For U.S. power and foreign policy: Hegemony or Survival, Who Rules the World?

Why he still matters

Whether one agrees with him or not, Chomsky pressed two audacious claims, that human language reveals an innate architecture of mind, and that media systems reflect power as much as truth seeking. Both claims continue to provoke research, rebuttals, and reappraisals, which is a fair test of intellectual impact.