Isidore Dyen

Isidore Dyen (August 16, 1913 – December 14, 2008) was an American linguist and professor of Malayo-Polynesian and Comparative Linguistics at Yale University. He was one of the foremost scholars in the field of Austronesian linguistics, publishing extensively on the reconstruction of Proto-Austronesian phonology and on subgrouping within the language family, the latter principally by means of lexicostatistics.

Biography The youngest son of a rabbi and his wife who had immigrated from Kiev (present-day Ukraine), Isidore Dyen was born in Philadelphia and grew up speaking Yiddish at home. He studied Hebrew at Gratz College in preparation for rabbinical training. However, during the course of earning a B.A. in 1933, an M.A. in 1934, and a Ph.D. in 1939 at the University of Pennsylvania, his interests shifted to comparative linguistics. After completing a dissertation on "The Sanskrit indeclinables of the Hindu grammarians and lexicographers"

Selected works