Michael L. Chyet

Michael L. Chyet
Born1957 (age 68–69)
Occupations
  • Librarian
  • Linguist
Known forKurdish dictionaries
ParentStanley Chyet
Academic background
Education
  • B.A., UCLA (1980)
  • M.A., UC Berkeley (1986)
  • C.Phil., UC Berkeley (1987)
  • Ph.D., UC Berkeley (1991)
Thesis'And a Thornbush Sprang Up Between Them:' Studies of Mem û Zin, a Kurdish Romance. (1991)
Martin Schwartz
Academic work
DisciplineNear Eastern Studies
InstitutionsLibrary of Congress

Michael Lewisohn Chyet (born 1957) is an American linguist and librarian.

Early life and education

He grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father, Stanley Chyet, was a reform rabbi and "a prominent scholar and professor of American Jewish history, translator of Hebrew literature, [and] poet." The family accompanied him on a sabbatical year in Jerusalem when Chyet was 13.

He studied at a Hebrew day school as a youth and learned Latin at prep school, picking up an enthusiasm for languages at age twelve and learning to read in Yiddish, German, French and Russian. He subsequently "mastered Arabic, neo-Aramaic, Turkish, Spanish, Persian, and Serbo-Croatian" and "can handle around 35 languages with varying degrees of fluency" according to a 2003 Jerusalem Post profile. His specialty is Kurdish, which he discovered at age 18, when he was introduced to a folk dance described as belonging to the "Kurdish minority of Eastern Turkey."

Chyet studied Arabic in college, receiving his bachelor's degree from UCLA in 1980. He trained with Interns for Peace in Israel in 1981. He received his Ph.D. in Mideast languages and folklore from the University of California, Berkeley. His dissertation was titled "'And a Thornbush Sprang Up Between Them:' Studies of Mem û Zin, a Kurdish Romance."

Career

He is a cataloguer of Middle Eastern languages at the Library of Congress, having initially joined the Library in fiscal year 2000 as a contract cataloger for Arabic. As of fiscal year 2011, he was responsible for cataloging in "Kurdish; plus Arabic, Persian, Turkish." Formerly, as of 1996, he was senior editor of the Kurdish Service of the Voice of America, where he worked until moving to the Library of Congress. Before that, he was Judaica and Middle East Language specialist in the cataloging department of the University of California, Berkeley's main library. He was also professor of Kurdish at the University of Paris and taught at the Washington Kurdish Institute.

He has written a Kurdish-English dictionary published by Yale University Press. An expanded edition in two volumes (and with a third English-Kurdish volume) was published in 2020. While the first edition used only the Latin alphabet, the second edition also employed the Arabic alphabet.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Golan, Ori (October 24, 2003). "The Jewish chronicler". Jerusalem Post. p. 27. ProQuest 319548418.
  2. ↑ Oliver, Myrna (October 22, 2002). "Obituaries; Stanley Chyet, 71; Rabbi Was Leader in Skirball's Creation". Los Angeles Times. p. B10. ProQuest 421731795.
  3. ↑ Shipler, David K. (February 12, 1981). "In Israeli Village, Jews and Arabs Erase Stereotypes". The New York Times. Retrieved August 27, 2026.
  4. ↑ Freestone, Julie (February 26, 1992). "Jews and the Kurds have similar history, expert says at U.C." Northern California Jewish Bulletin. Vol. 141, no. 9. p. 21. Retrieved August 27, 2026.
  5. ↑ "Ph.D.s Received". Middle East Studies Association Bulletin. 26 (2Z) [302]. December 1992. doi:10.1017/S0026318400026420. JSTOR 23063855.
  6. 1 2 Heineck, Janet (Fall 2001 – Spring 2002). "Annual Meeting 2001 San Francisco". MELA Notes (73/74): 67. JSTOR 29785763.
  7. ↑ Kopycki, William; Saleh, Marlis J. (2012). "Annual Meeting 2011 Washington, DC". MELA Notes (85): 108. JSTOR 23392504.
  8. 1 2 "Notes on Contributors - Die Autoren - Index des Collaborateurs". International Review of Education / Internationale Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft / Revue Internationale de l'Education. 42 (4): [415]. 1996. JSTOR 3444920.
  9. ↑ Boustany, Nora (August 29, 2003). "Passionate Polyglot Gives Kurdish Language a Voice in the World". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 27, 2026.
  10. ↑ Khalil, Mayada Kordy (March 18, 2020). "American linguist releases new Kurdish dictionary". SBS Kurdish. Retrieved August 27, 2026.
  11. ↑ Demirel, Ferid (February 14, 2020). "Michael Chyet: Ferheng diyariya herî mezin a ji bo Birûskî bû" [Michael Chyet: The dictionary was the greatest gift for Birûski]. Kurdî Bianet (in Kurdish). Retrieved August 27, 2026.