William F. Shipley (November 19, 1921 – January 20, 2011)[1] was an American linguist whose main area of research was the now-extinct Maidu language of Northern California.

[3] During World War II, he was part of a program to teach US Army soldiers to speak Mandarin Chinese at Berkeley.

[4] Their collaboration led to a book of Maidu texts and dictionary.

[6] Shipley taught as a professor of linguistics at UC Santa Cruz from 1966 to 1991.

After his retirement, he continued to work in spreading knowledge about the Maidu language and culture.