Roger Blench

Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and works as a consultant.

Career Blench is known for his wide-ranging interests and has made contributions to African linguistics, Southeast Asian linguistics, anthropology, ethnomusicology, ethnobotany, and various other related fields. He has done significant research on the Niger–Congo, Nilo-Saharan, and Afroasiatic families, as well as the Arunachal languages. Additionally, Blench has published extensively on the relationship between linguistics and archaeology. Blench is currently engaged in a long-term project to document the languages of central Nigeria. He has also expressed concern about ranching in Nigeria.

Blench collaborated with the late Professor Kay Williamson, who died in January 2005, and is now a trustee of the Kay Williamson Educational Foundation, which exists both to publish the unpublished material left by Kay Williamson and to promote the study of Nigerian languages.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 research fellow of the Overseas Development Institute in London.

Selected publications

2000. Blench, R. M. & MacDonald, K. C., eds. The Origin and Development of African Livestock. London: University College Press.

Sanchez-Mazas, Alicia; Blench, R. M. et al., eds. 2008. Human Migrations in Continental East Asia and Taiwan: matching archaeology, linguistics and genetics. London: Routledge. Blench, R. M. 1985. "Social Determinants of the Use of Speech-Surrogate Systems in Two Nigerian Societies : A Comparative Study of Speech and Music among the Nupe and Gbari Peoples." Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository. .