Ester Klug

Ester Klug is a linguist with more than 40 years of experience in the language field. Originally from the Philippines, she began her work there before moving to the United States, where she took on a role as a linguist in Maryland. Her career has since expanded nationwide and to international locations including Central Africa and South America. Klug earned a master's degree with the assistance of a Ford Foundation grant. As part of that academic work more than 50 years ago, she conducted research to gather and record the epic folk literature of a tribe in the Philippines. That recording, made with rudimentary equipment, became the first published version of the material and has since been included in anthologies of folk literature in the Philippines, Japan, and Australia, inspiring further studies on the topic.