Paul K. Benedict
American anthropologist, mental health professional, and linguist (1912–1997)
Paul King Benedict (5 July 1912 – 21 July 1997) was an American linguist who specialized in languages of East and Southeast Asia.
Quotes
edit- Welcome to the field of Southeast Asian linguistics! This welcome comes with a warning: Southeast Asia is the Bosnia of historical linguistics, with a lovely landscape strewn with land mines! … 'Look-alikes' (look less and less alike the more we know about them) abound, as in Malay bĕras and Wr. Tibetan 'bras for 'rice', as do also unlikely-appearing cognate sets such as Thai pu 'grandfather' and Japanese o:i 'nephew'.
- Benedict, Paul K. 1996. "Interphyla flow in Southeast Asia", in The Fourth International Symposium on Language and Linguistics, Thailand, pp. 1579-1590. Institute of Language and Culture for Rural Development, Mahidol University.
- As I see it, Greenberg and I are simply playing different games and the contrast in our approaches reflects that basic difference. … I play one game and am intrigued by the other but I do keep wondering whether that other game has any rules or whether a computerized robot might not be rather better at it all. But long live both games!
- Benedict, Paul K. 1991. "Comment on Matisoff's comparison between Greenberg and Benedict", in Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 169-170.