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Birth: Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 7, 1928. Parents: His parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia and Ukraine. Immigrant Background: Chomsky was born in Philadelphia in 1928 to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents. His father was a Hebrew scholar and teacher, and his mother was also a teacher. Jewish Identity: He was raised in a Jewish culture, learned Hebrew, and was involved in discussions about the politics of Zionism. -
Chomsky attended the independent, Deweyite Oak Lane Country Day School and Philadelphia's Central High School, where he excelled academically and joined various clubs and societies, but was troubled by the school's hierarchical and domineering teaching methods. He also attended Hebrew High School at Gratz College, where his father taught. -
In 1945, at the age of 16, Chomsky began a general program of study at the University of Pennsylvania, where he explored philosophy, logic, and languages and developed a primary interest in learning Arabic. Harris introduced Chomsky to the field of theoretical linguistics and convinced him to major in the subject. Chomsky's BA honors thesis, "Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew", applied Harris's methods to the language. -
In 1947, Chomsky began a romantic relationship with Carol Doris Schatz, whom he had known since early childhood. They married in 1949. After Chomsky was made a Fellow at Harvard, the couple moved to the Allston area of Boston and remained there until 1965, when they relocated to the suburb of Lexington. The couple took a Harvard travel grant to Europe in 1953. -
Chomsky revised this thesis for his MA, which he received from the University of Pennsylvania in 1951; it was subsequently published as a book. He also developed his interest in philosophy while at university, in particular under the tutelage of Nelson Goodman. -
In 1952, Chomsky published his first academic article in The Journal of Symbolic Logic
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From 1951 to 1955, Chomsky was a member of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University, where he undertook research on what became his doctoral dissertation. -
MIT promoted him to the position of associate professor in 1957, and over the next year he was also a visiting professor at Columbia University.