Isidore Dyen

Isidore Dyen (16 August 1913 in Philadelphia – 14 December 2008 in Newton, Massachusetts) was an American linguist, Professor Emeritus 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.

The youngest son of a rabbi and his wife who had immigrated from Kiev, Ukraine, "Iz" (as he was known to friends) grew up speaking Yiddish at home and studying 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" he planned to specialize in Slavic languages, but the needs of the U.S. Army during World War II drew him into languages in the Pacific Theater of Operations.