Memorial Service for Victor Mair
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A memorial service for Victor Mair will be held at Swarthmore Friends Meeting (12 Whittier Place, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania) on the afternoon of Saturday, October 10, between 2:00 and 5:00.
For those asking about how to scroll through Victor's posts — try the upper-right-corner "search" function, which implements this:
https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/index.php?s=Victor+Mair
Carlana Johnson said,
September 17, 2026 @ 12:38 pm
Rest in Peace, Prof. Mair. A scholar in the truest sense.
Chas Belov said,
September 17, 2026 @ 12:50 pm
I am forever grateful for the joy and knowledge Victor Mair has brought into my life through his writing. His personal communciations were gracious. Rest in peace.
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
September 17, 2026 @ 4:28 pm
Thanks, Prof Liberman. GPS says Swarthmore’s only a 3h52min drive from Syracuse. I, for one, would love to celebrate Prof. Mair’s memory with my LL “pen pals”. If anyone else plans to attend let me know.
Viseguy said,
September 17, 2026 @ 5:47 pm
I'll be there in spirit. Professor Mair's lively, erudite presence in this space is sorely missed.
martin schwartz said,
September 17, 2026 @ 7:41 pm
I echo Viseguy. I've indeed been mssing Victor's posts.
Another void in the world.
Martin Schwartz
Chris Button said,
September 17, 2026 @ 7:49 pm
I would like to attend too. I'm only a couple of hours' drive away.
Laura Morland said,
September 17, 2026 @ 9:51 pm
As my friend Martin (and Viseguy) stated, Victor's absence leaves a tremendous void. When I first subscribed to Language Log, I knew next to nothing about East Asian languages, but he wrote so engagingly that I read nearly every one of his posts… and thanks to him, I now follow a few Asian You Tubers who specialize in "popular linguistics" on YouTube (such as Julesy https://www.youtube.com/@julesytooshoes, whom he frequently cited).
And as Chas Belov wrote, Victor's personal communications with me were gracious. (I once teased him about being a "Swiftie," and he admitted it!)
I regret that 2500+ miles is just too far for me to travel, or I would surely be in Swarthmore on October 10th. If it's possible to livestream the memorial (or film it for later viewing), I hope that the powers-that-be will consider it.
Even at my remove, it was evident that Victor Mair was a great scholar and human being. May his memory be a blessing.
Allen Twyker said,
September 18, 2026 @ 12:21 am
How come I can’t see Victirs’s old posts? Can we please have them so we read them and keep him alive?
AntC said,
September 18, 2026 @ 2:14 am
Thank you Prof Mair. And rest in peace.
Tye S Power said,
September 18, 2026 @ 9:17 am
Victor made everything interesting and accessible, even for a non-scholar layperson like me. His writing showed a kind and curious spirit. May his memory be a blessing!
Scott P. said,
September 18, 2026 @ 9:24 am
How come I can’t see Victirs’s old posts? Can we please have them so we read them and keep him alive?
You can — they are still there. What are you looking for?
Terry K. said,
September 18, 2026 @ 9:42 am
@Scott P. & Allen Twyker
The old posts may still be there, but there doesn't seem to be any way to search for them. That is, no way to search for posts by a certain author. The search box only returns the text of a post. One must either randomly go through old posts, or search by topic.
Jerry Packard said,
September 18, 2026 @ 1:34 pm
I’d come to Victor’s memorial service if I weren’t 1500 miles away. I met Victor in 1984 and worked with him until 1991. I’d like to compose a statement to be read at the memorial if possible.
ATM achine said,
September 18, 2026 @ 5:18 pm
Rest in peace, Victor Mair. His erudition and, even more, his insatiable intellectual curiosity were a treasure that made virtually every post of his on here a joy to read. And his kindness was evident in every word he wrote. Language Log goes on, but his unique voice can never be replaced and will be deeply missed.
Andrew McCarthy said,
September 18, 2026 @ 5:22 pm
May his memory be a blessing. (Offered along with "rest in peace," for whichever expression of gracious condolence he might find best.)
Andrew McCarthy (ATM)
Philip Taylor said,
September 19, 2026 @ 3:16 am
[This comment has now been posted five times, and on each of the previous four subsequently disappeared. I am therefore re-posting it, primarily to place on record my enormous respect for Victor but also to assist Terry K. in his search for Victor's posts. I have removed the explicit URLs in case they are triggering some form of auto-moderation, and I hope that fellow readers of, and contributors to, Language Log will be able to re-create them from the plain text versions that follow].
I join with others in expressing my profound respect for Victor and for his contributions to this forum (and elsewhere, of course). In theory, one could find all of his posts by visiting Language Log and appending "?author=13" to the base URL but sadly that now returns nothing.
Even the Wayback machine can find nothing in its recent snapshots, but if one starts at the earliest entry and works one's way forward, one can at least find most. The earliest recorded posts may be found at the Wayback machine by telling it to search for the re-constructed URL suggested above and then telling it to display trawl results for the year 2008. The earliest I could find was dated 09-Jun-2008 at 10:38.
Francois Lang said,
September 19, 2026 @ 10:00 am
Although I never had the privilege of meeting Victor, we corresponded about LL topics, and he was kind enough to post a number of topics that I suggested to him. I will miss him, as I'm sure all LL readers will.
Stephen Goranson said,
September 19, 2026 @ 12:54 pm
Victor Mair did so much good work.
Though I had a slight disagreement with him on his comment on marginal notes in a Qumran MS, and I miss him telling me or us his teased reason why he chose the title "Sino-Platonic Papers"–that some initiate may yet reveal?–
such good work!
Thanks.
Peter B. Golden said,
September 19, 2026 @ 2:26 pm
A great scholar and warm human being. He will be missed.
Allen Twyker said,
September 20, 2026 @ 2:57 am
Can we please have his blogs as a searchable record for posterity? It would be in such poor form for Language Log to perform some unintentional damnatio memoriae. Or is there more drama here than we are aware of?
Philip Taylor said,
September 20, 2026 @ 6:00 am
According to the Wayback machine, "?author=<small number>" was still working in 2018, but I can find no evidence that it worked after that (although, of course, it may well have done so). We would therefore need to ask the site administrators what changes to the infrastructure occurred post-2018 to break the "?author=<small number>" feature, and whether the feature can/could be re-instated.
Stephen Goranson said,
September 20, 2026 @ 3:09 pm
I have no inside information, but VM
Stephen Goranson said,
September 20, 2026 @ 3:21 pm
Sorry for my mistaken post above.
I meant to continue that VM surely knew the search options here.
And, just as one grateful reader, I found the suggestion above of some imagined "damnatio memoriae" and questioned "more drama" as not only inappropriate but also nothing that I suppose he would have welcomed.
Thomas Hutcheson said,
September 20, 2026 @ 3:54 pm
It feels like a personal losss although I knew him only throgh his writing on LL. :(
Steffen Larsen said,
September 24, 2026 @ 7:15 am
Rest in Peace, Professor Mair.
Lars Skovlund said,
September 24, 2026 @ 5:22 pm
I'm sure the search is broken because some administrator removed his user account or something. No conspiracy here. Oh, and rest in peace, Victor.
Philip Taylor said,
September 25, 2026 @ 2:52 am
One cannot even search for posts by Mark Liberman, Lars. ("?author=2")
Blanche Oymoder said,
September 26, 2026 @ 7:40 am
My respects to the great man. In so many ways he was unparalleled and inimitable and his work, viz. Chinglish and its analysis, bought me countless hours of mirth.
Young-suk Jun said,
October 4, 2026 @ 7:02 am
I live in Seoul, Korea. I first began corresponding with Professor Victor Mair in the autumn of 2024, when our academic society invited him to participate in a conference on Ttangseolbeop, a living Korean Buddhist tradition of popular preaching preserved at Anjeongsa Temple in Samcheok, Gangwon Province. We continued to exchange emails, including personal greetings, until late April of this year.
Professor Mair came to Korea in May 2025 to participate in the conference, held on the Buddha’s Birthday. At Anjeongsa, he witnessed two remarkable examples of sokgang (俗講, Buddhist popular preaching) preserved within the living Ttangseolbeop tradition. One was Manseokjung Deukdogi (曼碩衆得道記), a shadow-puppet narrative about a man who overcomes many hardships, enters the Buddhist path, and eventually becomes an exemplary monk. The other was a performance based on the “Sudatta Builds the Jetavana Monastery” chapter (須達起精舍品) of the Sūtra of the Wise and the Foolish (賢愚經), whose narrative has striking parallels with the Dunhuang transformation texts concerning the contest in which Śāriputra defeats the six heretical masters.
Professor Mair was delighted to see this living tradition before his own eyes. He told us that he felt as though he were dreaming.
Although I knew Professor Mair for only a relatively short time, my exchanges with him taught me something about the extraordinary power of a clear and pure spirit of intellectual inquiry, joined with warmth, cheerfulness, and compassion. He was one of the clearest and warmest souls I have encountered in my life on this planet. I will remember him with deep gratitude and affection.
In his memory, I would like to offer an old Korean popular song sung by Patti Kim, one of Korea’s most beloved singers. The song is called “Geudae Eopsineun Motsara” (그대 없이는 못살아), literally, “I Cannot Live Without You.” Although originally written as a love song, over the years it has also come to be sung in Korea as an expression of affection and gratitude for family, friends, and others who have become precious in our lives. It is in this latter sense that I offer this song to Professor Mair.
I had hoped to share a link to Patti Kim singing this song, especially a beautiful performance in which people of different generations—mothers and daughters, friends, and others—exchange warm and loving smiles. Unfortunately, it seems that including an external link prevents my comment from being posted, so I regret that I cannot share the video here.
May he rest in peace.
Philip Taylor said,
October 4, 2026 @ 9:30 am
A wonderful tribute, Young-Suk Jun, and if I may help with the hyperlink, appending "watch?v=wk1-zXpYYLc" to the normal Youtube base URL will (I think) provide the Patti Kim version of the song.
Young-suk Jun said,
October 5, 2026 @ 5:12 pm
Thank you so much, Philip Taylor. That is very kind of you. I am deeply touched that you took the trouble to find Patti Kim’s song for me. Thank you again for your thoughtfulness.
Heidi Mair said,
October 8, 2026 @ 5:13 pm
Young-suk Jun,
I am Victor's sister and collaborated with others on the Victor Mair Legacy website. May we share your wonderful tribute on the website? I was very touched when I read it this morning. If you wish to attend his memorial service via Zoom, you can access the link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89618382517?pwd=Dg5cajKlGYufflm0GUqonJ6VClkpjk.1#success
The Memorial Service will be this Saturday 2 pm – 5 pm EDT (Philadelphia time)
Victor Mair website: https://victor-mair.com/
Heidi L. Mair
Young-suk Jun said,
October 12, 2026 @ 12:46 am
Dear Heidi,
Thank you so much for your warm and thoughtful message. I was deeply touched to receive a message from you, and I would be truly honored to have my tribute included on the Victor Mair Legacy website. Please feel free to share it.
Thank you also for sending me the Zoom link to the memorial service. Unfortunately, I did not see your message until after the service had taken place. I am very sorry to have missed the opportunity to attend, even from afar.
I would also be happy to share the particular Patti Kim video I had hoped to include in my tribute, if there is a convenient way to send it to you privately. It seems that posting YouTube links here causes problems.
Thank you again for your kindness and for your efforts to preserve Professor Mair's legacy.
With warm regards,
Young-suk Jun
Michael Carasik said,
October 12, 2026 @ 4:55 am
So glad that I got to know him, was able to chat with him, and even had a slight contribution here and there when he'd send out a question to his Penn colleagues, of whom I was unofficially one.