[2] Meyer was born in Groß Strehlitz in the Prussian Province of Silesia (present-day Strzelce Opolskie in modern Poland).
He went on to work as a gymnasium teacher in Gotha, from 1874 in Malá Strana, Prague at the intercession of Wilhelm von Hartel, and was appointed outside lecturer (Privatdozent) at the Charles University in 1876.
The next year he was named professor of Sanskrit and comparative linguistics at the University of Graz, where he pursued studies of Ancient Greek, Turkish, and Albanian.
[3] Full professor at the University of Graz from 1881, Meyer started to focus his studies on albanology, and prepared the foundations of the discipline by publishing the following works:[3] Meyer is considered to be the linguist who proved scientifically that the Albanian language belongs to the Indo-European family.
In honour of his contributions to Albanology, a grammar school in Tirana, Albania bears his name.