Paul K. Benedict
Paul K. Benedict
Paul King Benedict was an American anthropologist, mental health professional, and linguist who specialized in languages of East and Southeast Asia. He is well known for his 1942 proposal of the Austro-Tai language family and also his reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan and Proto-Tibeto-Burman. He was also a practicing psychiatrist in the New York area for 20 years and was also a pioneer in the f
"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."
"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!"
