David Appleyard (born 1950 in Leeds, England) is a British academic and an specialist in Ethiopian languages and linguistics.
He taught Amharic language and literature, as well as courses on Ge’ez, Tigrinya, Somali, Oromo, African linguistics, and Ethiopian cultural history.
Since 2007 he was involved as an editor and field specialist with the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica project.
History, Culture and Challenges, published as a joint project hosted under the Hiob Ludolf Centre for Ethiopian Studies, Hamburg University.
In 2014 he was awarded the British Academy Edward Ullendorff Medal for Semitic Languages and Ethiopian Studies.