Edo Nyland is a notorious pseudolinguistic
personage (one of the top names in my private kook-book) -- not the first or the
last person in quest of the ultimate morphemes of human language, but one
of the most eccentric. I once asked Cyril Babaev to remove a link to
his website from the TIED page (though I don't know if Cyril did so). Anyone who
rejects all known methods of reconstruction, says e.g. that Basque and Dravidian
are "closely related" (whatever that's supposed to mean to somebody who does not
"believe in" historical linguistics), and insists that all the languages of
Western Europe were artificially created by Benedictine monks in the interest of
the RC Church is probably not quite all there -- and at any rate way below
criticism. Perhaps the website is a huge private joke, but if so, it's already
too old to be funny.
Look at the full story if you have nothing
better to do, but remember not to take anything there seriously.
Internet is one of the greatest inventions
of all time, but like all the other great inventions (fire, bow and arrows,
printing, whisky, nuclear energy, parliamentary democracy, etc.) it has its
murky aspects. One of them is the freedom of expression enjoyed
by kooks. Unfortunately, there seems to be a cyberspacial analogue of
Gresham's Law which guarantees that cheap rubbish will inevitably drive out
serious thought. Keep this in mind if you want to use the Internet for
autodidactic purposes.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2002 4:22 AM
Subject: [tied] Check out What is Ogam?
Dear
Friends,
Not much activity in the group
lately. Here is an intellectual exercize that may be of interest to those
of you who are versed in Celtic or Basque languages. Does the information
on this site make sense or is the author jumping to huge conclusions unjustified
by the evidence presented?
Best Regards, John
Piscopo