Roger Blench

Roger Marsh Blench (born 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and remains based in Cambridge, England. He actively researches and publishes, although he works as a private consultant rather than in academia.

A noted expert in African linguistics,[1] Blench's main area of linguistic interest is the Niger–Congo language family, although he has also researched the Nilo-Saharan and Afroasiatic families. He has also written about other language families and endangered languages. Additionally, Blench has published extensively on the relationship between linguistics and archaeology, principally in Africa but more recently also in East Asia. Blench is currently engaged in a long-term project to document the languages of central Nigeria.

Blench collaborated extensively with the late Professor Kay Williamson, who died in January 2005, and is now a trustee of the Kay Williamson Educational Fund, which exists both to publish the unpublished material left by Kay Williamson and to promote the study of Nigerian languages. A series of publications supported by the trust is under way with Rüdiger Köppe Verlag in Cologne.

Blench has also conducted research and evaluations of international development activities worldwide, as a consultant and formerly as a research fellow of the Overseas Development Institute in London.