Lorenzo Dow Turner (August 21, 1890 – February 10, 1972) was an African-American academic and linguist who did seminal research on the Gullah language of the Low Country of coastal South Carolina and Georgia.
His father completed his master's degree at Howard University, although he had not begun first grade until he was twenty-one years old.
Turner's family's strong emphasis on education inspired him and helped him achieve academic success.
She also adds that: "He was tall, lean, with a head of wavy black hair above his thin,aesthetic, tan-colored face.
The fact that he looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties at most made the girls conscious of shiny noses before they entered his classroom".
In the early 1960s, he cofounded the Peace Corps training program to prepare young volunteers for service in Africa.
He also made recordings in the 1930s of Gullah speakers talking about their culture, folk stories and other aspects of life.
"[4] When Turner finally published his classic work Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect in 1949, he made an immediate impact on established academic thinking.
[7] Turner died of heart failure at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, on February 10, 1972.