Albert Franklin Buffington (July 11, 1905 - June 18, 1980) was a major figure in 20th-century Pennsylvania German linguistics and musicology. He was born in Pillow, Pennsylvania, and received his doctoral degree at Harvard University. Buffington taught German at Arizona State University until his retirement and emeritus appointment in 1965.
Buffington developed a standardized German-based orthography with his colleague Preston Barba known as Buffington-Barba or Buffington-Barba-Beam in a later version. Its first major codification was in Buffington and Barba's 1954 A Pennsylvania German Grammar (rev. ed. 1965).