Sign Language World Pioneer Ursula Bellugi dies at 91


Ursula Bellugi, a pioneer in the study of the biological underpinnings of language, and one of the first to demonstrate that sign language is as complex, abstract, and systematic as spoken language, died Sunday in San Diego. She was 91 years old.

His death in an assisted living facility was confirmed by his son, Rob Klima.

Dr. Bellugi was a leading researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego for nearly fifty years, and most of that time was director of the cognitive neuroscience lab. He made significant contributions in three main areas: language development in children; Linguistic structure and neurological basis of American Sign Language; and the social behavior and language abilities of people with a rare genetic disorder, Williams syndrome.

“He leaves a legacy that shines indelibly on how people communicate and socialize with one another,” Rusty Gage, president of the Salk Institute, said in a statement.

Dr. Bellugi’s work was done in collaboration with many of her husbands, Edward S. Air Conditioningadvanced understanding of the origins of the brain and language, both signed and verbal.

American Sign Language was first described as a true language in 1960. William C. Stokoe Jr.Professor at Gallaudet University, the world’s only liberal arts university dedicated to deaf people. However, this claim was mocked and attacked.

Died in 2008, Dr. Bellugi and Dr. Klima have conclusively demonstrated that the world’s more than 100 sign languages ​​are true languages ​​in their own right, not just translations of spoken languages.

Focusing on American Sign Language, Dr. Bellugi determined that these language systems in all their complexity were passed down from one generation of deaf people to another. For this reason, the scientific world sees him as the founder of the neurobiology of American Sign Language.

The couple’s work led to a major discovery in the Salk lab: that the left hemisphere of the brain has an innate predisposition for spoken or sign language. This finding gave scientists new insights into how the brain learns, interprets, and forgets language.

“This was a critical discovery for deaf people because it confirms that our language is treated equally by the brain – just as we should be treated equally by society,” Gallaudet’s president, Roberta J. Cordano, said in a statement.

Until then, sign languages ​​were regarded contemptuously as either vulgar pantomime with no rules or broken English, and deaf children were prevented from learning to point. The couple’s work contributed to the wider acceptance of ASL as a language of instruction and helped empower deaf people as the Deaf Pride movement developed in the 1980s.

Dr. Another issue Bellugi and his wife were working on was Williams syndrome. He sought to understand how the disorder, which is missing about 20 genes in one copy of a chromosome, changes the brain and ultimately shapes behavior.

Salk Institute, Dr. Bellugi’s work “helped paint a picture of the biology that humans use to interact with the world around us,” he said in a profile.

Ursula Herzberger was born on February 21, 1931 in Jena, a science and technology center in central Germany. With the rise of Hitler, his family fled Germany in 1934 and eventually settled in Rochester, NY. Max Herzberger a mathematician and physicist headed Eastman Kodak’s optical research laboratories; this job was arranged for him by his friend and former teacher in Berlin, Albert Einstein.

Mr. Herzberger went on to develop a special lens that resolved discoloration in glass. Ursula’s mother, Edith (Kaufmann) Herzberger, was an artist.

Ursula studied psychology at Antioch College in Ohio and graduated in 1952. Piero BellugiItalian composer and conductor, in 1953; They had two sons before they divorced in 1959.

Interested in psychology and language, he moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he became a research fellow. Roger BrownA distinguished psychologist at Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies how young children acquire language, Dr. She was soon studying at Harvard, where she earned her doctorate of education in 1967, while raising her sons as a single mother. Also, one of his teachers, Dr. He took classes at MIT, where he had air conditioning.

He legally changed his name to Bellugi-Klima when they got married, but continued to use Bellugi professionally. They moved west when he began teaching at the University of California, San Diego. She started in 1968 at the Salk Institute, a 10-minute walk from her husband’s campus, where she also teaches. He later taught at San Diego State University.

San Diego at the time was largely Dr. Bellugi and Dr. It was a hotbed of linguistic research revolving around Klima, as well as colleagues from Harvard and MIT. he was deaf.

Over the years, Dr. Bellugi has received many awards. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2007. He retired from Salk in 2017 at the age of 86.

She has written hundreds of articles and several books, some with her husband. His best-known book was “Signs of Language” (1979), co-written with 10 partners. It was the first comprehensive study of the grammar and psychology of sign languages ​​and was lauded by the American Publishers Association as “the most outstanding book in the behavioral sciences” of the year.

In addition to his son Rob, Dr. Bellugi has a surviving sister, Ruth Rosenberg; his brother Hans Herzberger; four grandchildren; and five grandchildren. His other son, David Bellugi, died in 2017.



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