Marvin Lionel Bender (August 18, 1934 – February 19, 2008) was an American linguist.

Dr. Bender died of complications from a stroke and brain hemorrhage on February 19, 2008, in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

Bender wrote and co-wrote several books, publications and essays on the languages of Africa, particularly those spoken in Ethiopia and Sudan, and was a major contributor to Ethiopian Studies.

Among other works, his books include Amharic Verb Morphology (his PhD dissertation - a generative study of Amharic verbal morphology), Language in Ethiopia (co-edited with C. Ferguson, C. Bowen, R. Cooper), Nilo-Saharan Language Studies, The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia, Preliminary Gaam-English-Gaam Dictionary, Omotic Verb Morphology, and the Berta Lexicon.

For many years, he was closely involved with NACAL, the annual North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics.