Reports of Noam Chomsky’s death are false, says linguist’s wife

NEW YORK (AP) — Valeria Wasserman Chomsky, the wife of Noam Chomsky, said reports published Tuesday that the famous linguist and activist had died were false.

“No, it is wrong,” she wrote Tuesday in response to an emailed query from The Associated Press.

Today’s reports of Noam Chomsky’s death (in the Jacobin and New Statesman, since deleted) were greatly exaggerated. I have received confirmation from his wife Valeria that he is alive and well.

— Steven Pinker (@sapinker) June 18, 2024

Noam Chomsky, 95, was hospitalized in his wife’s native Brazil recovering from a stroke he suffered a year ago, Valeria Chomsky told AP last week. But the Beneficencia Portuguesa hospital in Sao Paulo said in a statement that Chomsky was discharged Tuesday to continue his treatment at home.

The Chomskys have been resident in Brazil since 2015.

On Tuesday morning, Chomsky was a trending topic on X because there were numerous false reports about his death.

Jacobin and The New Statesman published obituaries for Chomsky, with the former changing its headline from “We Remember Noam Chomsky” to “Let’s Celebrate Noam Chomsky.” The New Statesman removed its essay by former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis entirely.

The Brazilian news portal Diario do Centro do Mundo also retracted its article about Chomsky’s death and published a correction.

Noam Chomsky, known to millions for his criticism of US foreign policy, taught for decades at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2017, he moved to the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson.