Paul King Benedict (traditional Chinese:白保羅;simplified Chinese:白保罗;pinyin:Bái Bǎoluó; July 5, 1912 – July 21, 1997) was an Americananthropologist,mental health professional, andlinguist who specialized in languages of East and Southeast Asia. He is well known for his 1942 proposal of theAustro-Tai language family and also his reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan andProto-Tibeto-Burman. He was also a practicing psychiatrist in the New York area for 20 years and was also a pioneer in the field ofethnopsychiatry.

Benedict was born inPoughkeepsie, New York and graduated fromPoughkeepsie High School in 1930. He attendedCornell University before transferring toUniversity of New Mexico, earning a bachelor of arts degree there in 1934.^[1]He then attendedHarvard University earning a master's degree in 1935 and a Ph.D. in anthropology in 1941. During his studies, he traveled to Asia and studied atUniversity of California for two years.^[2]

After he received his M.D. degree at theNew York Medical College, he served as Chief Psychiatrist and Director of the Diagnostic Center at theNew York State Department of Corrections.^[3] Benedict later published work on mental health in other cultures before turning his attention to language studies.

Benedict's work on Proto-Sino-Tibetan reconstruction was published in the 1972 monographSino-Tibetan: A Conspectus.^[4] His work formed the basis forJames Matisoff's work on theSino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus, including Matisoff'sProto-Tibeto-Burman reconstructions.^[5]

Benedict died in a traffic collision inOrmond Beach, Florida.^[1]

• Benedict, Paul K. (1942). "Thai, Kadai, and Indonesian: A new alignment in South-Eastern Asia"American Anthropologist 44.576-601.
• Benedict, Paul K. (1972).Sino-Tibetan: A Conspectus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Benedict, Paul K. (1975).Austro-Thai language and culture, with a glossary of roots. New Haven: HRAF Press.ISBN 0-87536-323-7.
• Benedict, Paul K. (1990).Japanese/Austro-Tai. Ann Arbor: Karoma.ISBN 0-89720-078-0.
• Benedict, Paul K. “Remarks on A Comparative Vocabulary of Five Sino-Tibetan Languages, byIlia Peiros andSergei A. Starostin.”Mother Tongue 4:151-2.
• Benedict, Paul K.,Graham Thurgood, andJames A. Matisoff, and David Bradley (eds.). 1985.Linguistics of the Sino-Tibetan area: the state of the art: papers presented to Paul K. Benedict for his 71st birthday. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
• Benedict, Paul K. 1997.Special volume dedicated to Dr. Paul K. Benedict on the occasion of his eighty-fifth birthday (Mon-Khmer Studies, vol. 27). Salaya, Thailand: Mahidol University; Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics.

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