David Salo is an American linguist who worked on the languages of J. R. R. Tolkien for the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies, expanding the languages (particularly Sindarin) by building on vocabulary already known from published works, and defining some languages that previously had a very small published vocabulary.

As an undergraduate at Macalester College, Minnesota he studied Latin, Greek, and linguistics, and used the knowledge gained to improve his understanding of Tolkien's languages.

[4] In 1998 he was among the founders of the Elfling mailing list for Tolkienist language enthusiasts.

[2][1] Subsequently, Salo provided similar services as the Tolkien language consultant for The Hobbit film trilogy.

[3] He provided assistance with Khuzdul for the 2023 video game The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria.