Linguistic Archaeology from Edo Nyland was a disappointment on almost every level. There are far too many leaps of faith to take the entire argument seriously. His methodology is sketchy at best and he is not so much refuting accepted scholarship (that would actually be useful and hold the seed of possible breakthroughs) as he is ignoring that which he doesn't understand and creating a bridge out of fantasy ideas to cover those areas.

I am not part of the "academic establishment" in linguistics so I am not defending any particular position. I am, however, defending good methodology and conclusions that come from rational hypotheses. This work falls very short in that regard. I even saw one person refer to this as an academic text. No, this is just the musings of someone written in an academic manner, though far easier to follow than many academic texts. There is nothing here that is hard to understand, by which I mean it is not hard to understand his arguments and the portions that put forth an argument. What is lacking is an underpinning beyond mere conjecture and guessing (albeit disguised as research and "proof").

I had hoped for an interesting and plausible exploration of a perspective other than accepted thought. What I got was a wild fantasy with little grounding in, well, anything. It was, however, an interesting read even if it was mostly due to gaping holes in linking ideas and proof or even suggestive data. I'm afraid I can't really recommend this at all.

Reviewed from a copy made available through Goodreads First Reads. ( )