36.1394, All: Passing of Dr Anjum P Saleemi, Pakistan's Pre-Eminent Linguist

Tue Apr 29 23:05:01 UTC 2025

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-1394. Tue Apr 29 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.1394, All: Passing of Dr Anjum P Saleemi, Pakistan's Pre-Eminent Linguist

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Date: 28-Apr-2025
From: Usman Saleemi [u.saleemi at gmail.com]
Subject: Passing of Dr Anjum P Saleemi, Pakistan's Pre-Eminent Linguist

It’s with profound grief that we announce that (PhD) Dr. Anjum Pervez
Saleemi, esteemed scholar and professor of theoretical linguistics and
cognitive sciences, passed away in Lahore, Pakistan, on April 19th,
2025. Born October 24, 1953 in Gujranwala, Punjab, Pakistan to
Chaudhary Taj Muhammad and Begum Saeeda, he is survived by his only
remaining son, Usman Saleemi.
Dr. Anjum lived a storied and distinguished academic life, from
earning a PhD in Linguistics at the University of Essex, UK under a
British Council Fellowship to becoming one of Pakistan’s most esteemed
linguists. He career spanned across three continents in some of the
world’s greatest institutions, including the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT), LUMS, GCU, UMT, UoL (Lahore, Pakistan), Allama
Iqbal Open University (Islamabad, Pakistan) Aarhus Universitet
(Denmark), NUS (National University of Singapore), National Taiwan
University (NTU) and King Saud University (KSA), chairing various
departments, teaching countless university students, and leaving
behind a rich academic legacy. In addition to his work across
Pakistan, the US, UK, Singapore, Taiwan and Saudi Arabia, he visited
many more countries including Canada, Germany, Austria and India for
guest lectures and a diverse range of academic collaborations. As it
all began with his BA and MA at Punjab University, Lahore, he always
maintained a fond attachment to the institution and unofficially
helped many candidates pursue post-graduates overseas through his
recommendations, network and enthusiastic support.
In particular, he was proud of his time as a Visiting Scientist and
researcher at MIT working under Noam Chomsky’s department and
considered Mr Chomsky to be a most esteemed colleague, collaborator,
mentor and advisor. The influence of Chomsky remains visible across
much of Dr Anjum’s academic works, including his book “Universal
Grammar and Language Learnability” (Cambridge University Press), which
intersected linguistic theory and language learning models in various
ways, and remains in print til date.
In addition to that book, and countless academic works published
globally in peer-reviewed journals, Dr. Anjum co-authored “In Search
of a Language for the Mind-Brain” along with Ocke-Schen Bohn and
Albert Gjedde, questioning if language and thought should be
investigated scientifically or socially. He was a member of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, Linguistic
Society of America, Linguistics Association of Great Britain,
International Association for the Study of Child Language, New York
Academy of Sciences, and more.
He approached academia with a healthy mix of reverence and
irreverence, bending the rules wherever humanity dictated they be
bent, and upholding them with firm sincerity where he believed it was
the honorable thing to do so.
He was strongly for cross-border, cross-departmental collaboration and
self-critical examinations of all academic subjects and norms. He was
endlessly fascinated with history, mathematics, literature, and
poetry, and exploring their intersections with the more formal aspects
of his work. A poet himself, his close friends and family enjoyed his
rich work in Urdu, Punjabi and English, thanks to his rare gift of
being not only proficient but profound in all three languages. His
creative writing remains the privilege of only close circles, but his
son and associates are working to compile and publish a collection.
Personally, he had a loving yet complicated family life. Having split
with his wife Nighat Saleemi, he continued to be a committed part of
the life of his two sons, Shoaib and Usman. He never quite recovered
from having to bury his eldest son, Shoaib Saleemi, a loss that left
him deeply heartbroken. He was overjoyed to host and attend the
marriage of his son Usman Saleemi to Mais Hadidi of Jordan, in Dubai,
UAE, in 2024. His last outings were with them, and he enjoyed family
gatherings and vacations up until his passing. He was loved and cared
for til the very end. His illnesses were many and his medical
complications varied, yet he ended up passing from an insidious
infection that caught him unawares and ended up overshadowing his more
prominent health concerns. He went peacefully under expert medical
care, surrounded by loved ones. He was buried in his beloved Lahore on
a beautiful spring day.
For condolences, well-wishers can reach out to his son Usman via email
at u.saleemi at gmail.com

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics
                     Language Acquisition
                     Linguistic Theories
                     Phonology
                     Syntax

Subject Language(s): English (eng)
                     Hindi (hin)
                     Panjabi (pan)
                     Urdu (urd)

Language Family(ies): Hindustani
                      Indo-Aryan

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