Murray Barnson Emeneau (February 28, 1904 – August 29, 2005) was the founder of the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley.

While at Yale, Emeneau began Sanskrit and Indo-European studies with the Sanskritist Franklin Edgerton and Indo-Europeanist Edgar Sturtevant.

Given the dire employment situation in the early 1930s, Emeneau stayed on at Yale after completing his dissertation, taking courses in the "new linguistics" being taught by Edward Sapir.

Despite the characteristic reserve that eschewed historical reconstruction, this work, revised in a 1984 second edition, remains the indispensable guide, tool, and authority for every Dravidianist.

Emeneau was named the Collitz Professor of the Linguistic Society of America in 1953, and at Berkeley he gave the Faculty Research Lecture in 1957.