Derek Bickerton (born March 25, 1926) is a linguist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu. Based on his work in creole languages in Guyana and Hawaii, he has proposed that the features of creoles provide powerful insights into the development of language both by individuals and as a feature of the human species. He is the author of Roots of Language (1981), Language and Species (1990), Language and Human Behavior (1995), and with William H. Calvin, co-author of Lingua ex Machina: Reconciling Darwin and Chomsky with the Human Brain (2000).