This book offers a state of the art overview of current linguistic and archaeological research from the Caribbean and Meso America, through Amazonia and the Andes to Argentina, ranging from historical comparative through descriptive and socio-linguistics to new discoveries in archaeological research.

In this book Colin Renfrew directs remarkable new light on the links between archaeology and language, looking specifically at the puzzling similarities that are apparent across the Indo-European family of ancient languages, from Anatolia and Ancient Persia, across Europe and the Indian subcontinent, to regions as remote as Sinkiang in China. Professor Renfrew initiates an original synthesis between modern historical linguistics and the new archaeology of cultural process, boldly proclaiming that it is time to reconsider questions of language origins and what they imply about ethnic affiliation--issues seriously discredited by the racial theorists of the 1920s and 1930s and, as a result, largely neglected since. Challenging many familiar beliefs, he comes to a new and persuasive conclusion: that primitive forms of the Indo-European language were spoken across Europe some thousands of years earlier than has previously been assumed.

No detailed description available for "Culture Groups and Language Groups in Native North America".

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology" by John D. Baldwin. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Edo Nyland shares with us his research on the evolution of European and other languages and his conclusions offer fresh perspectives to challenge traditional views entertained by the linguistic establishment. Nyland's research was inspired by a CBC presentation by historian Edward Furlong who suggested that Odysseus may not at all have been travelling in the Mediterranean but rather in Scotland and Ireland where the climate and topography fit far better the descriptions in the Odyssey. Nyland set off on an odyssey of his own, visiting the proposed locations and while he found much to support Furlong's thesis he felt more evidence was needed to confirm it. He began by examining place names mentioned in the Odyssey and he began to wonder if they might be telling a story. But from what language were they derived? Greek, Latin and Gaelic dictionaries were no help. He discovered a clue in the work of geneticist Luigi Cavalli-Sforza who had suggested that there might have been early migrations of the peoples living along the Atlantic coast, from Morocco to Scotland and Ireland, even Arctic Norway. Of these only the Basques still spoke their original Neolithic language, and in choosing a Basque dictionary to translate coastal place names Nyland found that they did indeed yield remarkably fitting descriptions. In visiting Bronze Age ruins Nyland came on the Ogam inscriptions carved into standing stones of Ireland. These had not been deciphered but Nyland began to suspect they might encode elements of the Basque language. Cracking the code became his mission and in this volume he describes how he did it. After applying his method successfully to such languages as Spanish or German, Sanskrit or Sumerian, Nyland concludes that Basque isthe core language from which so many more were derived.

Both of Edo Nyland's theses are in contradiction to current opinions of linguists, who tend to suppose polygenesis of language families and language changes caused by natural evolution. Unbelievable? Edo Nyland gives many convincing proofs in this book: There are hundreds of examples of words, taken from different languages, being decoded by the same method, revealing their hidden meaning. The decoding method is successfully applied to the translation of the forgotten language OGAM, the remains of which are found on standing stones of Ireland, Scotland and North America. Other currently available translations of Linear-B Text on Cretan clay tablets, supposed to be written in ancient Greek, and of the enigmatic book AURAICEPT of the Benedictine monks, supposed to written in Celtic language, have been considerably improved by the same decoding method. Edo Nyland's, web site, where he presents the contents of this book, has been selected as a featured site in Lightspan's StudyWeb as one of the best educational resources on the Web. The book can be read easily by interested laymen. Scholars of linguistics, stone-age and medieval history, religion and anthropology might use this book for a critical revision of their current paradigms.