Sarah Grey Thomason (known as "Sally") is a linguist known particularly for her work on language contact, historical linguistics, pidgins and creoles, Slavic Linguistics, typological universals, and xenoglossy. She has also worked since 1981 documenting Montana Salish. She is one of the Language Log bloggers.
Thomason received her B.A. from Stanford University and her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1968. She taught Slavic Linguistics at Yale from 1968 to 1971 before moving to the University of Pittsburgh in 1972. Since 1999 she has been William J. Gedney Collegiate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Michigan. She is married to philosopher/computer scientist Richmond Thomason and is the mother of linguist Lucy Thomason.
From 1988 to 1994 she was the editor of Language, the journal of the Linguistic Society of America.
In 1999 she was Collitz Professor at the Linguistic Society of America summer institute. In 2000 she was President of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas.
Thomason is known for the interesting doodles that she draws while listening to talks at conferences.