Ruth Laila Schmidt is a scholar of Nepali language and other languages. During 1972-3 she introduced a program of Nepal Studies and Nepali language at the University of California (Berkeley). She also served as field director of the Berkeley Urdu language Program in Pakistan for two years. In 1984 she returned to Nepal and worked for 7 years on A Practical Dictionary of Modern Nepali. She teaches Urdu at the University of Oslo in Norway, where she now lives. She is also the author of Urdu: An Essential Grammar (Routledge).