David Emanuel Daniel Europaeus was born December 1st, 1820 in Savitaipale, in the South Karelia region of Finland. His father, the local vicar Peter Adolf Europaeus, was a member of the intelligentsia, as well as a friend and assistant to H. G. Porthan. The younger Europaeus, too, was a part of the intellectual elite of his day, albeit his status was less straightforward than that of his father's.

Europaeus graduated from upper secondary school in Viipuri in 1844, after which he enrolled in the University to study Finnish language. He was registered at the University for twelve years, but never graduated. His other interests and work swept him away from his studies, earning him the sobriquet “the eternal student.”

In his research, Europaeus devoted his energies to linguistics and the Middle Ages. He made numerous field trips to study communities and language, with the aim of discovering ancient Finnish settlements using place names and chronology as his guide, and to uncover the ancestry of the Finnish language by studying vocabulary and inflectional forms. However, his findings failed to comply with the generally-held beliefs of the time, nor was he respected as a linguist or an archaeologist during his own lifetime. This was largely due to  his conviction that Indo-European languages were the closest relatives to Finno-Ugric languages, and that Africa was the birthplace of all languages. This claim earned him the nickname ‘Indo-Europaeus-Afrikanus’. And Europaeus' incomplete education did result in work of uneven scientific quality, although some of his theories have their supporters to this day.

Europaeus also considered it important to be involved more generally in the affairs of his day. He founded the Suometar journal along with August Ahlqvist and others. Europaeus also started his own newspaper called Kansakunnan lehti ('The Nation's paper') in 1863, but with falling circulation figures and the attendant financial difficulties it was shut down. Europaeus was also an active pacifist, and as a journalist he was an energetic apologist for democratic ideals.

Despite actively looking, Europaeus never found permanent employment. He survived on temporary income, such as travel grants and working as a tutor and a research assistant. He neither married nor had children, and finally passed away in the St Petersburg Hospital for the Poor on May 15th, 1884.

Today, despite all the criticism, credit is given to Europaeus for his pioneering work in onomastics, although the jury is still out as to whether he was more eccentric individual than misunderstood genius.

References

• Senni Timonen, ’Europaeus, David Emanuel Daniel (1820 - 1884). Runonkerääjä, kielentutkija, muinaistieteilijä, toimittaja’ ('Europaeus, David Emanuel Daniel (1820 – 1884). Collector of poems, linguist, archaeologist, journalist'), National Biography of Finland Online, 2001 (Free access through the Nelli porta). Accessed February 23, 2015. In Finnish.
• Laila Lehikoinen, ’D. E. D. Europaeus kirjasuomen kehittäjänä ja kielentutkijana’ ('D. E. D. Europaeus, developer of standard Finnish and linguist') (), Virittäjä 2/1986, pp. 178 – 202. In Finnish
• D. E. D. Europaeus on Wikipedia. Accessed February 23, 2015. In Finnish.