Edo Nyland was born in 1927 in Holland, and for the past 18 years, as a retirement project, has been researching the neolithic origin of the world's languages, starting with the writings of Homer and inscriptions on clay and stone in Egypt and elsewhere.
In the process of gathering data he became more and more convinced that a universal language had existed in the Neolithic and that virtually all advanced languages of today derived directly from this early language.
This finding challanged the polygenetic theory of languages and supported the monogenetic origin of languages, similar to Darwin's polygenetic theory of the human races. This work resulted in his first book, Linguistic Archaeology: An Introduction.
All this had been the result of a talk he heard on the CBC about the "Wanderings" of Odysseus.
His next effort is expected to be the translation of the 1200-year-old Aurai'cept na n' ees, the operations manual of the Benedectine monks. It was writte in codified Basque shorthand and promises to be very time-consuming.
Also by Edo Nyland:
Linguistic Archaeology: An Introduction
