ENGLISH VOCABULARY

Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary criticism, history, and linguistics.[1] It is more commonly defined as the study of literary texts and written records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form, and the determination of their meaning.

Classical philology is the philology of Classical Sanskrit, Greek and Classical Latin. Classical philology is historically primary, originating in Pergamum and Alexandria[2] around the 4th century BCE, continued by Greeks and Romans throughout the Roman and Byzantine Empires, and eventually taken up by European scholars of the Renaissance, where it was soon joined by philologies of other languages both European (Germanic, Celtic, Slavistics, etc.) and non-European (Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, Chinese, etc.). Indo-European studies involves the comparative philology of all Indo-European languages.

Any classical language can be studied philologically, and indeed describing a language as "classical" is to imply the existence of a philological tradition associated with it.

Because of its focus on historical development (diachronic analysis), philology came to be used as a term contrasting with linguistics. This is due to a 20th-century development triggered by Ferdinand de Saussure's insistence on the importance of synchronic analysis, and the later emergence of structuralism and Chomskyan linguistics with its emphasis on syntax.

Contents [hide]

1 Etymology

2 Branches

2.1 Comparative

2.2 Textual

2.3 Cognitive

2.4 Decipherment

3 In popular culture

4 See also

5 Notes

6 External links

Etymology[edit]

The term philology is derived from the Greek φιλολογία (philologia),[3] from the terms φίλος (philos), meaning "love, affection, loved, beloved, dear, friend" and λόγος (logos), meaning "word, articulation, reason", describing a love of learning, of literature as well as of argument and reasoning, reflecting the range of activities included under the notion of λόγος. The term changed little with the Latin philologia, and later entered the English language in the 16th century, from the Middle French philologie, in the sense of "love of literature".

The adjective φιλόλογος (philologos) meant "fond of discussion or argument, talkative", in Hellenistic Greek also implying an excessive ("sophistic") preference of argument over the love of true wisdom, φιλόσοφος (philosophos).

As an allegory of literary erudition, Philologia appears in 5th-century post-classical literature (Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii), an idea revived in Late Medieval literature (Chaucer, Lydgate).

The meaning of "love of learning and literature" was narrowed to "the study of the historical development of languages" (historical linguistics) in 19th-century usage of the term. Due to the rapid progress made in understanding sound laws and language change, the "golden age of philology" lasted throughout the 19th century, or "from Friedrich Schlegel to Nietzsche".[4] In the Anglo-Saxon world, the term philology to describe work on languages and literatures, which had become synonymous with the practices of German scholars, was abandoned as a consequence of anti-German feeling following World War I[citation needed]. Most continental European countries still maintain the term to designate departments, colleges, position titles, and journals. J. R. R. Tolkien opposed the nationalist reaction against philological practices, claiming that "the philological instinct" was "universal as is the use of language".[5][6] In British English usage, and in British academia, "philology" remains largely synonymous

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