William Abbott Oldfather (1880 – 1945) was an American classical scholar.

He was born in Urumiah, Persia (now Urmia, Iran) to missionary parents, Jeremiah Oldfather and Felicia (née Rice). The classical scholar Charles Henry Oldfather (1887 – 1954) was his younger brother;^[1] he was noted for many translations, and they sometimes worked together.

He was awarded a doctorate by the University of Munich, in 1908.

He was on the faculty of the University of Illinois from 1909, where he remained for the rest of his life.

DR. REVILO Pendleton Oliver, Professor of the Classics at the University of Illinois for 32 years and one of the leading philologists of his time, read eleven languages, including Sanskrit, and for more than half a century wrote scholarly articles in four languages for academic publications in the United States and Europe.

Oliver was the possessor of a penetrating intellect — and a scintillating wit unequaled by few if any writers. He has been aptly compared with the great H.L. Mencken.

Dr. Oliver was born in Texas in 1908, and was an undergraduate at Pomona College, California. He obtained his doctorate under the tutelage of the highly respected Classicist William Abbot Oldfather at the University of Illinois. His first book was a copiously annotated translation from the Sanskrit, Mrcchakatika (The Little Clay Cart) published by the University of Illinois in 1938.