Otto Dempwolff (25 May 1871 – 27 November 1938) was a German physician, linguist, and anthropologist who specialized in the study of the Austronesian languages.
Initially trained as a physician, Dempwolff began his linguistic research while serving as medical doctor in the German colonies German New Guinea and German East Africa. Under the mentorship of Carl Meinhof, he began his academic career at the Hamburgisches Kolonialinstitut, which later became part of the University of Hamburg. In 1931, he founded the Seminar für indonesische und Südseesprachen, which he headed until his death in 1938. He was also appointed to the Royal Prussian Phonographic Commission (Königlich Preußische Phonographische Kommission) for his expertise in medicine, as well as African and Indonesian languages. The purpose of the commission was to record the approximately 250 languages spoken by the prisoners of German World War I prisoner-of-war camps.
