Daniel Harbour

Daniel Harbour

Daniel Harbour is an expert in formal linguistics and in writing systems. For 25 years, he has worked with speakers of endangered languages from the US to the South Caucasus and West Papua to preserve their knowledge for future generations and to understand the unique insights they offer into human language. Educated at Oxford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he is the Professor of the Cognitive Science of Language at Queen Mary University of London and is one of the few people in the world, beside tribal elders, familiar with the Kiowa language of Oklahoma. His major study of decipherment—from the Palaeolithic, via hieroglyphs, oracle bones, and quipus, through to the search for extraterrestrials—will be published by Bloomsbury UK and US in 2025, with international rights presold in five languages. Daniel lives in London and has recently been made a Fellow of the British Academy.

Daniel is represented by Charlotte Merritt.