John Hamilton McWhorter V (1965- ) is an American linguist. He held the position of American associate professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley until 2003, and is now a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, and a columnist for the New York Sun. He is the author of a number of books on language and race relations. His linguistic specialty is creole and the process through which it forms.

McWhorter attended Friends Select School (a Quaker high school in Philadelphia), and was accepted to Simon's Rock College after tenth grade. Later, he attended Rutgers University and achieved a B.A. degree in French. He received a master's degree in American Studies from New York University and a Ph.D. in linguistics from Stanford University.

He has published a number of books on linguistics and on race relations (see bibliography) and makes regular public, radio and television appearances on related subjects. He has spoken many times on National Public Radio. He has appeared twice on Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, in the profanity episode in his capacity as a linguistics professor, and in the slavery reparations episode for his political views and knowledge of race relations.