James Wells Gair (December 27, 1927 – December 10, 2016) was an American linguist who specialized in the languages of South Asia. He is best known for his work on Sinhala, much of which was done in collaboration with W. S. Karunatillake. Other languages on which he worked include Pali, Tamil, and Dhivehi.

After receiving a BA (Magna cum Laude) (1949), and then an MA (1956) in English from the University of Buffalo, James Gair attained a PhD in Linguistics (1963) from Cornell University and then an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Kelaniya in Sri Lanka (1993) where he was awarded the title of "Sahitya Chakravartin," that is, "Benevolent Emperor of Literature".

James Gair was invited to become an assistant professor of linguistics at Cornell immediately on completing his PhD (1962), where he remained until his retirement (2000), becoming full professor (1974) and emeritus (2000). Before teaching at Cornell, James Gair also taught at the University of Buffalo 1949-1951, l954-1958, the State University of New York at Utica 1951-1954, and served a year in the US Army in Korea. He also taught at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Kelaniya (Sri Lanka), the Universities of Delhi, Colombo and Kerala, and was visiting scientist at both Harvard and MIT.