John B. Haviland is a linguistic anthropologist, professor of Anthropology at UCSD. His work concentrates on Tzotzil (Mayan) speaking peasant cornfarmers from Zinacantán, Chiapas, Mexico , and on speakers of Guugu Yimithirr (Paman), especially at the Hopevale Aboriginal Community, near Cooktown, in northern Queensland, Australia . He is currently engaged in two new projects: one on speakers of Amuzgo (Otomanguean), both in their home communities in Oaxaca and in an immigrant community in Oceanside, California, as part of a wider set of studies about Mexican indigenous people in diaspora; and the other on a first generation homesign from Chiapas, Mexico. Haviland’s recent research interests also include Mexican merolicos (street performers), multimodal interaction, ethnomusicology, and language and the law.

Those interested in the Tzotzil language may find useful a rough English translation (by Reed graduate Stuart Robinson) of Haviland's Tzotzil pedagogical grammar (originally published in Spanish, as Sk'op Sotz'leb: El Tzotzil de San Lorenzo Zinacantán by the UNAM). The HTML tagging was done by Reed College graduate Esteban Gutiérrez. A PDF version of Robert M. Laughlin's recently published Tzotzil-Spanish dictionary can be found here.

There is a somewhat propaganda-filled article about some of Haviland's work in Reed magazine, published at Reed College, where Haviland was formerly professor of Linguistics and Anthropology

Haviland is a certified (Lionbridge) legal interpreter for the Tzotzil language. He also founded and directs UCSD’s Linguistic Anthropology Laboratory.