Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn

Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn (August 28, 1612 – October 3, 1653) was a Dutch scholar (his Latinized name was Marcus Zuerius Boxhornius). Born in Bergen op Zoom, he was professor at the University of Leiden. He discovered the similarity among Indo-European languages, and supposed the existence of a primitive common language which he called 'Scythian'. He included in his hypothesis Dutch, Greek, Latin, Persian, and German, later adding Slavic, Celtic and Baltic languages. He excluded languages such as Hebrew from his hypothesis. He died in Leiden.

Etched portrait from the editions of Boxhorn's works by Caspar Commelijn (1660ff.), after a portrait of c. 1640.

References

• B. van Wayenburg (2004), "Marcus van Boxhorn: uitvinder van de Europese oertaal", in Mare di libri 32 (in Dutch)
• Biography on the site Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren (in Dutch)
• Digitized primary sources and secondary information on the wiki Hortus Linguarum (in English)