Derek Bickerton (March 25, 1926 – March 5, 2018) was an English-born American linguist and academic. He was born in Cheshire, England. He was Professor Emeritus at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. His work was based in creole languages in Guyana and Hawaii. He proposed that the features of creole languages provide powerful insights into the development of language both by individuals and as a feature of the human species.