Edward S. Klima (June 21, 1931 – September 25, 2008) was an American eminent linguist who specialized in the study of sign languages.
Klima's work was heavily influenced by Noam Chomsky's then-revolutionary theory of the biological basis of linguistics, and applied that analysis to sign languages.
[2] Klima graduated from James Ford Rhodes High School in Cleveland, Ohio in 1949.
Starting in 1957, Klima worked as an Instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under Noam Chomsky.
Later he also became an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where his wife, Ursula Bellugi, was a professor, and director of the Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience (of which Klima acted as associate director).