John McWhorter

John Hamilton McWhorter V (1965– ) is an American linguist and political commentator. He is the author of a number of books on language and on race relations. His linguistic specialty is Creole and the process through which it forms. Dr. McWhorter attended Rutgers University and received a B.A. in French in 1985. He received a master’s degree in American Studies from New York University and a Ph.D. in linguistics in 1993 from Stanford University. He has taught at Cornell University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Columbia University. He is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank.

He has published a number of books on linguistics and on race relations and makes regular public radio and television appearances on related subjects. He is also the author of the courses titled Understanding Linguistics: The Science of Language and Story of Human Language for The Teaching Company, and he is a columnist for the New York Sun.