Victor Mair RIP
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Victor Mair passed away two days ago, on Sunday 6/28/2026. We'll have a proper series of memorial posts and links later, but for now, here's a Facebook post from his brother Denis, his Wikipedia page, and a link to LLOG posts written by or mentioning him.
Michèle Sharik Pituley said,
June 30, 2026 @ 2:23 pm
Oh I am so sorry to hear this news. My deepest condolences to his family and many friends and colleagues. May his memory be a blessing to us all.
Cirk Russell Bejnar said,
June 30, 2026 @ 2:29 pm
Oh dear. That was unexpected. His posts were interesting and he always sounded like a delightful person. He will be missed.
GeorgeW said,
June 30, 2026 @ 2:47 pm
His scholarship and character were very clear to those of us who knew him only from his posts on this site. RIP
Bill R said,
June 30, 2026 @ 3:19 pm
Victor followed his enormous curiosity wherever it took him; as a scholar he was both an intellectual traveller and an actual world traveller. I will miss his energetic spirit and his unceasing efforts to find out more about the world he lived in. RIP.
Michael P said,
June 30, 2026 @ 3:23 pm
Prof. Mair's posts were always interesting and enlightening. They were consistently accessible to a non-linguist like me, and his collaborations with other scholars showed that he also had a depth of knowledge and engagement with people around the world. He made the world a better place for being here.
Olaf Zimmermann said,
June 30, 2026 @ 3:35 pm
Oh shit! Not him too! He was only 83, for cryin' out loud!
My condolences and commiserations to his nearest and dearest.
NW said,
June 30, 2026 @ 3:49 pm
Oh I'm so sorry to hear that. He was such a prominent figure here, and we got to know so many aspects of him.
Heidi Mair said,
June 30, 2026 @ 3:53 pm
I am his sister Heidi and also posted to Facebook earlier today.
https://www.facebook.com/hmair
Jim Breen said,
June 30, 2026 @ 4:05 pm
Terrible news. A huge loss to the world, which has just shrunk considerably. My condolences to his family.
Laura Morland said,
June 30, 2026 @ 4:09 pm
OH, NO! I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the subject header on this post. I just moaned, "No, no, no, no, no…. " over and over.
I am in tears now. Although I never met Victor in person, he touched my life. His brilliant, thoroughly-researched posts here incited in me a newfound fascination for Asian languages. I emailed him occasionally, too, and his kind, witty, and rapid responses always brightened my day.
What a terrible loss. We'll never see his like again.
My only consolations is in believing that he is now with his beloved spouse.
Rest in peace, dear Victor Mair.
Philip Taylor said,
June 30, 2026 @ 4:10 pm
Deeply saddened to learn of Victor's passing — his contributions to this forum, and to scholarship in general, were outstanding, and he will be much missed by all who knew him. 路走好, Victor.
Eric TF Bat said,
June 30, 2026 @ 4:15 pm
I am astonished to learn that he was mortal. It didn't seem the way to bet. I thought the end of the universe would be attended by dying red stars and Victor Mair.
Sproat Richard said,
June 30, 2026 @ 4:30 pm
Very sorry to learn this. May he rest in peace.
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
June 30, 2026 @ 5:01 pm
I have no words, but echo all the words above. I’d never met the man, but Language Log always made me feel like he was like a “pen pal”, but a pen pal to the whole linguaphile world. He was always that refreshing blend of scholar, gentleman, critic (playful, though never with even a hint of cynicism), and lover of humanity. Eternal Rest, Victor Mair.
AntC said,
June 30, 2026 @ 5:11 pm
Very sad news. Victor was always generous and encouraging to my (amateur) interest in everything Sinitic. Thank you Prof Mair. Last we corresponded, he was talking about a return visit to Taiwan/Taichung.
Chau said,
June 30, 2026 @ 5:44 pm
My deepest condolences to his family and all his friends and colleagues. What an amazing person and what a remarkable, beautiful life! I feel that deep in his heart he had a soft spot for Taiwan, maybe because it was there he met his future wife. I am grateful that I had a chance to meet with him personally. After one of his runs, from Indiana to Chicago one summer, we had luncheon in Chinatown, Chicago, with other good friends from U of Illinois (me a retiree from Northwestern). After lunch, Professor John Rohsenow took us to the Chinese American Museum of Chicago and gave us an enlightening tour. A fond memory I always treasure.
永懷風範 !
Marinus Ferreira said,
June 30, 2026 @ 6:07 pm
My condolences to his family and colleagues. I can't remember when I started reading Language Log, but it must be more than 15 years ago. Victor Mair has been a part of my life for that long, save I'll miss learning from him.
Chris Button said,
June 30, 2026 @ 6:13 pm
What a truly wonderful man, what a truly wonderful scholar, and what a truly wonderful life he lived.
I will so dearly miss corresponding with him. And I will forever treasure the couple of times we met in person. Rest in peace, Professor Mair.
Elizabeth Okada said,
June 30, 2026 @ 6:52 pm
I'm so sorry to hear this. I've enjoyed and learned so much from his posts over the years. He can never be replaced.
LisaRR said,
June 30, 2026 @ 7:02 pm
I also want to send condolences as a Language Log reader.
I learned a great deal from Language Log over the years.
Prof Mair seemed always curious and always dedicated to learning.
Nagamanickam Ganesan said,
June 30, 2026 @ 7:18 pm
Very sad. He used to reply emails right away.
A great loss for the study of ancient relations between China and India.
He was the founder and editor of the Sino-Platonic Papers.
https://sino-platonic.org
Hope the series continues. Let me know who will be the new editor.
N. Ganesan
Brandon Seah said,
June 30, 2026 @ 7:20 pm
This is sad news. Like many commenters above I only knew Prof Mair through his posts and writings but came to recognize his voice and appreciate his wide ranging interests. My sincere condolences.
JeroenSH said,
June 30, 2026 @ 7:25 pm
Oh no. I loved his posts about Chinese. A very great scholar.
Ben said,
June 30, 2026 @ 7:54 pm
This is a great loss to the world.
I am an avid Language Log reader and frequently had the pleasure of interacting with Prof. Mair in the comments or via email. I have also read several of his publications. He had an incisive voice into many issues, past and present. While saddened by the loss, we are grateful for the time we had with Prof. Mair.
Paul said,
June 30, 2026 @ 8:17 pm
Such a fascinating, brilliant, thoughtful man. He is missed. His words will live on.
Stephen Lavelle said,
June 30, 2026 @ 8:35 pm
Condolences to his family and friends. I was entertained by and learned a lot from his posts here over the years. Rest in peace, Professor Mair.
Vulcan With A Mullet said,
June 30, 2026 @ 9:02 pm
Oh no :((((( Many condolences to his family and loved ones. I will really miss his presence online even if that was the only way I ever encountered him.
Martin Schwartz said,
June 30, 2026 @ 9:12 pm
BIG sigh. Victor was unique.
Martin Schwartz
John Colarusso said,
June 30, 2026 @ 9:30 pm
He was a giant. We shared a course years ago in grad school at Harvard. He mastered Chinese by memorizing 10 characters a day no matter what, holidays. Illness . Not only was he a brilliant and curious intellect, but he was also a scholar of great energy and focus. We will not see his like again.
Ted McClure said,
June 30, 2026 @ 9:39 pm
May he be written in the book of life. He would always express his thanks whenever I sent him a link to some interesting article I had stumbled across. His cross-discipline examination of the evolution of central Asia/western China always fascinated me. He understood how change worked in human civilizations.
Tony Luan said,
June 30, 2026 @ 9:41 pm
I am deeply saddened by the passing of Professor Victor Mair. For independent researchers studying the deep historical connections across Eurasia, Victor was a titan. He fearlessly challenged the isolationist view of East Asian history, and his dedication to hard, physical evidence paved the way for those of us investigating the ancient ties between the ancient Near East and early China.
On a personal note, I will always owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude. Despite his stature, he possessed an extraordinary open-mindedness. He recently took the time to review my research on the Sumerian origins of the Xia and Shang dynasties and had generously agreed to host a guest post about my book here on Language Log. His willingness to support and encourage independent scholarship outside the traditional academic walls was a rare and precious quality.
My deepest condolences to his family, his colleagues and his friends. His courage, intellectual honesty, and boundary-breaking scholarship will be profoundly missed.
Paul Frank said,
June 30, 2026 @ 11:47 pm
Professor Victor Mair was a polymath, and I admired him more than any scholar I can think of. I vividly remember a Harvard lecture he gave in the early 1990s on Eurasian hat traditions, complete with slides of witches’ hats and Ötzi’s cap. I also had the privilege of translating, in 2003, a German paper for Sino-Platonic Papers – the journal Mair edited – that argued for replacing Chinese characters in everyday use with pinyin. (I didn’t agree with the argument, but my admiration for him was the main reason I took on the task. It always baffled me that this giant of scholarship – author of T’ang Transformation Texts: A Study of the Buddhist Contribution to the Rise of Vernacular Fiction and Drama in China, editor of The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature, and co-editor, with Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt and Paul R. Goldin, of the Hawai‘i Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture – believed that Chinese people would be better off writing in pinyin than in Chinese characters for everyday life.) He was extraordinarily patient with me: I was living in Eritrea at the time, and my internet connection was agonizingly slow, often failing for days. Just the other day I wrote a short, amateur piece on ketchup (https://paulofrank.substack.com/p/ketchup), and the first thing I did was check whether Victor Mair had written about it on Language Log. Sure enough – he had. Professor Mair was even an expert on ketchup.
James said,
July 1, 2026 @ 12:01 am
Oh, what a shock, and a tragedy.
Victor has so many fans! We are all grateful, and all saddened.
Condolences to his family.
Chas Belov said,
July 1, 2026 @ 12:38 am
I am so sorry to read that. Condolences to his family and colleagues.
He was always so nice when I sent him bits of random Chinese I had run across, sometimes putting them in his blog column and even being nice about it when it wasn't of interest despite likely having an overflowing inbox.
Guess he's out there running the rest of the Lincoln Highway, including the part that's expressway now that there's nobody able to call the highway patrol on him.
Andreas Johansson said,
July 1, 2026 @ 12:40 am
Rest in peace, Prof. Mair. LL will not be the same without you.
Yves Rehbein said,
July 1, 2026 @ 12:42 am
I am in awe. He was ever so kind. What a truly great loss.
Mark S. said,
July 1, 2026 @ 1:16 am
New issues of Victor's wide-ranging monograph series, Sino-Platonic Papers, will continue to be issued until we run out of papers that completed Victor's approval process. So please continue to check the site.
Recent releases that Victor most certainly would have written about here on Language Log include the following:
How Many Chinese Characters Do I Know? (我认识的汉字有多少？), by Douglas R. Hofstadter
Hunnic alxa ‘white’ as a Loanword from Indo-European Languages, and the Ethnonym Alkhan, by Hasanhan Taylan Erkıpçak
Legendary Ancestors of the Chinese in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, by Xiaofeng He
Piecing Together Plato in Late Qing China: Wang Shunan 王樹枏 (1852–1936) and the Xila xue’an 希臘學案, by Eric L. Hutton.
Mark S. said,
July 1, 2026 @ 1:21 am
I apologize for the broken links in the post above. Curly quote marks broke the URLs. The following should work better:
How Many Chinese Characters Do I Know? (我认识的汉字有多少？), by Douglas R. Hofstadter
Hunnic alxa ‘white’ as a Loanword from Indo-European Languages, and the Ethnonym Alkhan, by Hasanhan Taylan Erkıpçak
Legendary Ancestors of the Chinese in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, by Xiaofeng He
Piecing Together Plato in Late Qing China: Wang Shunan 王樹枏 (1852–1936) and the Xila xue’an 希臘學案, by Eric L. Hutton.
Philip Bowler said,
July 1, 2026 @ 3:30 am
The recent lack of posts from Prof Mair made me wonder … But this news still comes as a saddening shock. Reading his posts was always enlightening and they have helped me to a much better understanding of China and its languages.
So many others here have already expressed our collective feelings of loss, and gratitude. His valued work is a great legacy.
Jonathan Ginzburg said,
July 1, 2026 @ 4:35 am
Very sad news. As others here, I learnt so much about so much from Victor Mair and bought quite a few books under his influence—one of the latest being A Historical Taxonomy of Talking Birds in Chinese Literature, which combines some of his vast interests.
Peter K said,
July 1, 2026 @ 4:51 am
First of all, my heartfelt condolences to the family and loved-ones of Prof. Mair in the wake of his passing.
Belonging to the cohort of "silent readership" of this blog and being an sinologist and part-time linguist myself, I really enjoyed the wide range of topics Prof. Mair covered on this blog with his avid sense of forging connections between the sinophonic sphere (debates about whether Chinese could be analyzed as one single language or rather a language family with today's putonghua as some sort of linguistic compromise) and the grecian and persian speaking regions which also influenced the developement of today's Chinese vocabulary and conceptualization of certain aspects of life.
I hope that whereever Prof. Mair may be right now he will be able to get in touch with all the other great sinologists and linguists of days passed and that he will keep amazing them with his wit, intelligence and deep understanding of China, the Sinosphere and everything else which he held dear in life.
Requiescat in pacem!
Pedro said,
July 1, 2026 @ 5:00 am
So sad to read this. Condolences to all his colleagues
bks said,
July 1, 2026 @ 6:21 am
Everything I know about Asian languages I learned right here, from him.
Stephen Goranson said,
July 1, 2026 @ 7:12 am
Given such wide-ranging interests, VM encouraged many also. Thanks.
(He was going to tell us his extra reason for the title, Sino-Platonic Papers. Perhaps a sibling or other initiate will inform us.)
DDeden said,
July 1, 2026 @ 7:43 am
Victor was one of those giants whose shoulders we stood upon.
He will be much missed, much appreciated. RIP.
Jarek Weckwerth said,
July 1, 2026 @ 8:06 am
This is really, really sad to hear! We will miss him badly! Please pass on my condolences to the family.
Francois Lang said,
July 1, 2026 @ 8:50 am
Such sad news. I never had the pleasure of meeting Victor, but we corresponded by email about LL posts and he was always very encouraging and supportive. I am so sorry to hear that LL will no longer be graced by his scholarship, his wit, and and keen intelligence.
Jim Unger said,
July 1, 2026 @ 9:04 am
Echoing an earlier comment, I recall Victor telling me years ago about his time in Nepal, during which he suffered some injury or disease and recovered under the care of an Nepalese man who seemed to have been a guru or monk. Victor hinted that the treatment he got probably had made him immortal. That was Victor: an imaginative storyteller with a deep appreciation of the cultures of East Asia. His open-minded boyish enthusiasm and personal generosity was a model of academic commitment.
Markonsea said,
July 1, 2026 @ 9:05 am
Prof Mair leaves a giant hole in LL and in the world at large. He will be sorely missed, as will his knowledge, insights and humour.
Mo said,
July 1, 2026 @ 9:10 am
My deepest condolences to Victor Mair's family, friends and colleagues. I loved reading his posts on Language Log, they were so insightful, rich and unique, this is truly a loss.
GH said,
July 1, 2026 @ 10:05 am
I'm very sorry to hear that. Condolences!
languagehat said,
July 1, 2026 @ 10:06 am
Very sorry to hear that; my condolences to his family and friends.
Cedar said,
July 1, 2026 @ 10:10 am
Truly sorry to hear. Victor's writing on Language Log were always pleasant to see and read. Clearly, he was a man who live fully. Thank you, Victor. Sincere condolences to his family and loved ones.
NSBK said,
July 1, 2026 @ 10:19 am
Truly and deeply saddened to hear of Prof Mair's passing. His enthusiasm and passion were inspiring while he was alive, and certainly more yet to come will be inspired by the writings that he has left with us. His memory lives on with us and in those works.
Rest in peace, Professor.
Steve Wadley said,
July 1, 2026 @ 11:02 am
So sad to hear of the passing of Victor Mair. The many messages of condolence here on the language log attest to his generous nature in his scholarship and life. He made even a nodding acquaintance like myself feel like a close personal friend. I will miss him.
RCT said,
July 1, 2026 @ 12:02 pm
I'm so sorry to hear this. I've been reading his posts on Language Log for years and appreciated his wide-ranging interests. Condolences to his family and friends.
Paul Frank said,
July 1, 2026 @ 1:06 pm
Professor Victor Mair was a polymath, and I admired him more than any scholar I can think of. I vividly remember a Harvard lecture he gave in the early 1990s on Eurasian hat traditions, complete with slides of witches’ hats and Ötzi’s cap. I also had the privilege of translating, in 2003, a German paper for Sino-Platonic Papers – the journal Mair edited – that argued for replacing Chinese characters in everyday use with pinyin. (I didn’t agree with the argument, but my admiration for him was the main reason I took on the task. It always baffled me that this giant of scholarship – author of T’ang Transformation Texts: A Study of the Buddhist Contribution to the Rise of Vernacular Fiction and Drama in China, editor of The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature, and co-editor, with Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt and Paul R. Goldin, of the Hawai‘i Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture – believed that Chinese people would be better off writing in pinyin than in Chinese characters for everyday life.) He was extraordinarily patient with me: I was living in Eritrea at the time, and my internet connection was agonizingly slow, often failing for days. Just the other day I wrote a short, amateur piece on ketchup, and the first thing I did was check whether Victor Mair had written about it on Language Log. Sure enough – he had. Professor Mair was even an expert on ketchup.
Charles Antaki said,
July 1, 2026 @ 2:01 pm
I, too, want to add my condolences. Although I knew nothing about the topics he studied, I was always impressed by the humanity and the depth of scholarship that he brought to his posts. Rest in peace.
Andrew McCarthy said,
July 1, 2026 @ 2:46 pm
Incredibly sad to hear this. Victor Mair's posts were always insightful and enlightening upon a broad range of topics. His writing was frankly a joy to read even on the rare occasions when I disagreed with him. His contributions to Language Log will be deeply missed. May he rest in peace, and my condolences to his family.
Chris Coulouris said,
July 1, 2026 @ 3:55 pm
My friend just sent me the post of Professor Mair's passing. I have been reading Professor Mair's fascinating posts for years. Condolences to his family, friends, and students. Since Professor Mair hadn't posted on the log for several weeks I feared that he wasn't well. 愿逝者安息
Brian Pellar said,
July 1, 2026 @ 5:41 pm
I'm sorry to hear about his passing. My deepest condolences to his family and to those who were lucky enough to have met him. I am grateful for what he has done for others, and for his belief in my own work. He will be greatly missed.
J.M.G.N. said,
July 1, 2026 @ 5:58 pm
Let's not mourn, but celebrate his fruitful life.
HS said,
July 1, 2026 @ 7:01 pm
I am very sad to hear of Professor Mair's passing. I didn't know him personally, only through his posts here on Language Log which I stumbled upon many years ago, but I was always impressed (amazed might be a better word) by his depth and breadth of knowledge in so many areas, particularly of course in all things Asian, whether it was languages or culture or literature or history or archeology or cuisine, and by his ability to write clearly and explain things well. I was also impressed by the things he had done, ranging from serving in the Peace Corps in Nepal, to archaeology expeditions in the Tarim Basin, to scholarly studies and teaching and journal editing, to running across America! Rest in peace.
Chris Fraser said,
July 1, 2026 @ 7:18 pm
Deepest condolences to his family. Victor was one of a kind, and his enthusiasm for knowledge was infectious. I will treasure the memories of my many pleasant exchanges with him.
Barbara Phillips Long said,
July 1, 2026 @ 7:21 pm
I will miss seeing Victor Mair's posts at Language Log and miss being able to email him with queries that he answered patiently and sometimes posted about. May his scholarship and the memories of those who knew him continue his legacy and sustain scholarship and open-mindedness in the tradition he exemplified.
Daniel Tse said,
July 1, 2026 @ 10:58 pm
May he rest in peace. Irreplaceable.
KWillets said,
July 1, 2026 @ 10:59 pm
As a longtime reader, commenter, and occasional submitter of tidbits to this blog I will deeply miss Victor's posts. He had a rare gift of being accessible, engaging, and rigorous at the same time.
His curiosity was always apparent, and I would sometimes email him Korean oddities I had encountered in my travels: an etymology of Korean apartment names, a backlash against overuse of honorifics, and so on.
He always posted these items with my comments verbatim, as if I were an expert in these matters. I am not, but he never cared either way. He was guided by the spirit of inquiry.
Perry Link said,
July 2, 2026 @ 12:19 am
I have known and interacted with Victor since the early 1970s in so many spheres–language-teaching, linguistics, popular Chinese fiction, Chinese politics, jokes, language puzzles, American politics, American academic maladies, and so much more. Did anything unify his interests? Yes. Integrity. He never said or wrote anything that he did not believe. He would not even know how to start.
Alex B said,
July 2, 2026 @ 1:09 am
Very sad news indeed! I used to send him bits of Asian pop culture with a linguistic slant that I hoped would amuse him.
I found him a very open minded person with a great sense of humour. He will be missed.
Jerry Packard said,
July 2, 2026 @ 5:59 am
Oh no, I am so sorry. This is terrible news. I had no idea. Victor was my colleague at UPenn for several years at UPenn. As everyone could clearly see, Victor was a true Renaissance scholar of East Asia, fluent in the languages and literatures of the area. Victor was always so 壮 zhuang4 – strong and vital – I simply cannot believe he would pass so early – I thought he would live forever. My heart is broken and I wish condolences and the best to Thomas and the rest of Victor’s family. Victor will now reunite with Li Qing and they will be happy together. God bless my friend Victor Mair.
Hyacinth said,
July 2, 2026 @ 8:07 am
How sad to read this today. I've been mostly lurking on Language Log for over 15 years and Victor's wonderful posts have enriched my daily life in countless ways. He's an inspiration to me as a model of what a scholar is: someone with extraordinary intellectual energy and intellectual generosity. I never got to meet him or interact with him directly, and I value the comments of others on this post relating stories that make me admire him even more. Thank you and RIP, Dr. Mair.
Jason M said,
July 2, 2026 @ 8:45 am
Wow. Somehow I am shocked by this news. I have been mostly lurking, rarely commenting, here for what 10, 15?, years. Coming here has been a treat, an indulgence only on a weekend morning or holiday, only when work problems are down to a simmer and chores not immediately pressing.
Selfishly, I guess now I think about it, I always thought that Victor, and this haven he spearheaded, would always be here for me. So it brought immediate tears to my eyes when I read the news and realizes he was a real person with family, friends, and endless mentees and inspirees he leaves behind.
Athel Cornish-Bowden said,
July 2, 2026 @ 9:56 am
Very sad news. Exactly my age, give or take a week.
Hongchul Chun said,
July 2, 2026 @ 10:22 am
I am deeply heartbroken and filled with immeasurable sorrow. It is an overwhelming shock that the person I have respected most throughout my life has passed away so suddenly.
DaveK said,
July 2, 2026 @ 12:43 pm
I will miss Professor Mair’s presence here. His posts were always fascinating. He could discuss highly technical points I knew nothing about and make them interesting. He must have been a great classroom teacher.
Julie Lee Wei said,
July 2, 2026 @ 3:36 pm
Victor was a great scholar and a great man. I shall always be grateful for his kindness and generosity. To me, his departure has left the world more desolate.
JPL said,
July 2, 2026 @ 4:42 pm
I am shocked and greatly saddened by this news. My condolences to his family.
I imagine he can't have expected to go on ahead so soon and just at this point. He must have had ongoing projects and problems to work out, with an imagined path to letting the world know how far he had gotten. He seemed to have a lot of understanding alive in his head, and I'm so sad that we may never get to know more of its full extent.
Lucas Christopoulos said,
July 2, 2026 @ 6:49 pm
Sorrow, as I began publishing my works with the SPP twenty years ago.Victor's open-mindedness and vast, diverse knowledge are unparalleled in the world of Sinology. He will always stand above the rest. Farewell, Victor.
Pamela said,
July 2, 2026 @ 7:36 pm
Victor is irreplaceable. But I know how much he loved this project, and made so many others love it around the world.
Penglin Wang said,
July 3, 2026 @ 8:49 pm
It is with a heavy heart that I have heard of the passing away of Professor Victor Mair, which leaves a profound void in the academic field of transcontinental contact and exchange in Eurasia and in the lives of all who had the privilege of knowing him. I myself met him in Philadelphia and Hong Kong and in some scholarly conferences. At the beginning and in the course of my research I have been lucky enough to have his strong support and encouragement to go in the direction of cultural, linguistic, and civilizational contact and interaction. Professor Mair is an accomplished and prolific scholar. His numerous contributions to the field of Chinese and Asian studies enriched our understanding, inspired new generations of researchers, and helped shape the direction of our discipline. I’d like to convey my deepest condolence and mourning.
David Morris said,
July 3, 2026 @ 9:47 pm
Condolences to Victor's family, friends, colleagues and LLog contributors. His posts here were erudite and humane, even if my limited knowledge of Sinitic studies meant I couldn't follow many of them. He and Mark have kept LLog going for 20+ years among their other work, building a worldwide community. I occasionally emailed Victor about LLog matters and his replies were always prompt and thoughtful. One of my comments to a post here led to a comprehensive post about Preserved Wife Plum: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=33627
Ave atque vale.
Stefan Krasowski said,
July 3, 2026 @ 10:55 pm
My first course with VHM, we spent two weeks attempting to understand and translate two lines: “道可道,非常道”. The answer eludes me still, though that began a 25-year intellectual friendship, even though I never progressed beyond undergraduate studies, VHM always found time to engage with me across his many interests. I had the good fortune to see him in person one more time this past fall, making the trip to AAS conference in Vancouver. My computer monitor ad hoc stand is a stack of hardcover 'Mathews' Chinese English Dictionary' and 'ABC 汉语大词典' (汉语大词典出版社 edition), so I am continually reminded of the example of his ferocious work ethic.
CCH said,
July 4, 2026 @ 12:58 am
RIP, Victor. I only ever communicated with him in the comments here but he became a bit of an inspiration for me as an East Asian languages and linguistics lover. I send all my best wishes and sympathy to his friends and family, I can't imagine the loss they must be feeling right now.
KIRINPUTRA said,
July 4, 2026 @ 9:28 am
A great loss. And sudden. Condolences to his kin and kindred.
DCA said,
July 4, 2026 @ 6:11 pm
Very sad, indeed wrenching, to think of all the posts that might have been and will never be.
Mehmet Oguz Derin said,
July 4, 2026 @ 10:48 pm
I am deeply saddened by Professor Victor H. Mair’s passing. I knew him through Language Log and email correspondence, after being referred to him by a leading scholar of the Classic of Changes. He listened generously to my questions and made a much younger researcher feel part of a wider scholarly conversation. His expertise crossed scripts, languages, and civilizations. I am grateful for his encouragement and will remember him with deep respect, it was a pleasure to wait his responses ending with VHM signature. May he rest in peace. – Oguz
MOD
IG said,
July 5, 2026 @ 2:06 am
Very sad to hear that… I only knew him from his posts on this blog, but it was a highlight of my day to read and learn. May he rest in peace. My heart goes out to his family.
Bart Barry said,
July 5, 2026 @ 3:22 pm
Sad to hear of VMH’S death. Reading him here at Language Log all these years has been a great pleasure. My condolences to his family and friends.
JF said,
July 5, 2026 @ 7:53 pm
I audited one class with professor Mair and that was the best and most enlightening time I have had throughout my years in school. From him I learned what true passion and integrity in scholarly works look like. He was also just a great man, always kind, helpful, and infectiously happy. The impact he and his academic legacy left will perpetuate. May he rest in peace.
Victor H. Mair (1943-2026): Remembering an Extraordinary Scholar said,
July 5, 2026 @ 9:37 pm
[…] Language LogVictor H. Mair's essays on language, linguistics, Chinese studies, and related subjects. […]
counterbander said,
July 5, 2026 @ 11:37 pm
It seems like since Geoff Pullum rode off into the sunset, Victor Mair has been the backbone of LLog. Great job. Someone else, please step tup to help Mark.
Xinyi Ye said,
July 6, 2026 @ 7:05 am
How lucky we are to be Prof Mair's student. He has demonstrated us what it means to be a great researcher, mentor, and most importantly, a great person in life. We're exceptionally lucky to have met him.
Jerry Packard said,
July 6, 2026 @ 11:39 am
Victor would have been especially pleased to see us using this form of communication to help us mourn our collective loss.
Francis Deblauwe said,
July 6, 2026 @ 11:42 pm
Sorry to hear about this. Condolences. Innige deelneming.
Blake Shedd said,
July 8, 2026 @ 6:32 am
What a sincere pleasure to have shared in enjoying Prof. Mair's insights these many years–may his words sown here and elsewhere be reaped for many more years to come.
Violet Xiaoqiao Zhu said,
July 8, 2026 @ 8:33 pm
I wrote about my memories of studying with professor Mair for a year, and in the end, I realized that professor Mair’s greatest personal charm is that he helps those around him fall in love with the world again.
Liwei Jiao said,
July 9, 2026 @ 5:32 am
Professor Mair's remarkable life and prolific scholarship embodied Confucius' versatility and benevolence, as well as Mencius' intellectual sharpness and moral strength. Perhaps Mencius was especially fond of Victor, sparing him the traditional Confucian milestone of eighty-four and allowing him to leave us at eighty-three instead. Rest in peace, Victor.
Jing Hu said,
July 12, 2026 @ 10:15 pm
I have been in deep sorrow since the day Professor Mair passed away. His passing is an immeasurable loss—not only to those of us who knew and loved him personally, but also to the world of scholarship. His intellect, generosity, and willingness to help and inspire others touched countless lives and transformed the study of Chinese language, literature and culture.
I feel fortunate to have known him both as a colleague in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania and as a longtime friend and neighbor in Swarthmore. My mind keeps returning to the many weekends we spent having coffee together at Hobbs in downtown Swarthmore. We would spend hours discussing Chinese language reform, the fascinating linguistic phenomena he wrote about on Language Log, Hu Shih, and Chinese "topolects"—the insightful term Professor Mair coined—along with countless other topics. It is difficult to imagine that there will be no more conversations, no more coffee, and no more chance encounters in our neighborhood. His kindness, wisdom, and friendship will remain with me always!
He will be deeply missed and forever remembered!
Sarah Creel said,
July 17, 2026 @ 9:30 pm
I am deeply sorry. My condolences to Victor's loved ones and colleagues. I will greatly miss his insights.
M. Paul Shore said,
July 21, 2026 @ 7:26 am
I was an early student of Victor Mair’s, 1977-79, in the undergraduate East Asian Languages and Civilizations program at Harvard. I started out strong academically but then began to deteriorate, for various reasons but especially because I could never really adjust to the rather particular kind of lunatic asylum the Harvard undergraduate college was at the time. (I get the impression that it’s still somewhat of a lunatic asylum, but of a different kind and not as bad.) I managed to mostly pull myself together for my senior year and my thesis, that being after Prof. Mair had left for U. Penn., but the memory of my rocky performance in my sophomore and junior years continued to bother me long afterwards.
Thirty-plus years later, I discovered Language Log. At first, intimidated by the unrevisability of comments (even a five-or-ten-minute revisability window would be great!), I only lurked, but after a while I gave in to the temptation to start commenting, and eventually Prof. Mair accepted some guest post submissions by me. I wish now that I’d submitted more of those, but since as some LL readers will remember he was planning to live to 120, I figured I had plenty of time!
For a scholar of Prof. Mair’s stature to make himself available to the general public in the way he did was a great gift, one that I’ll always be grateful for, and I found it an inestimable pleasure to be able to submit comments and posts that at least aspired to the level of quality I wish I’d been able to consistently reach during my undergraduate years. Often when I went onto Language Log I felt as if once more I was climbing up the stairs to Prof. Mair’s bright, spacious, well-appointed attic-level office (equipped with a daybed, among other things) for another meeting of my year’s handful of undergraduate concentrators—at the time a less language-intensive major called East Asian Studies also existed, with several dozen concentrators—but this time in possession of more knowledge, more maturity, and less time pressure.
Being able to in effect resume my studies with Prof. Mair has been a privilege I never expected and that I don’t expect to see the like of again. (Particularly since the majority of my college and university professors are now deceased.) At least, because unfortunately I was mostly a sporadic Language Log reader, there are thousands of his posts that remain for me to read, plus his publications and videos, which taken together will enable me to stay in unidirectional contact with him for years to come. And I plan in the future, mainly when passing through the Philadelphia area, to visit some of his favorite restaurants, bakeries, etc. as mentioned here and there in his posts, order some of his favorite items as likewise mentioned, and think memorial thoughts.