Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of literary texts and oral and written records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form, and the determination of their meaning. A person who pursues this kind of study is known as a philologist. In older usage, especially British, philology is more general, covering comparative and historical linguistics.

Classical philology studies classical languages. Classical philology principally originated from the Library of Pergamum and the Library of Alexandria around the fourth century BC, and was continued by the Ancient Greeks and then the Romans throughout the Roman and Byzantine Empire. During the Middle Ages, it lived through scholars of the Arabic world. Later, it resumed in Europe scholars of the Renaissance, where it was soon joined by philologies of other European (Romance, Germanic, Slavic, etc.), Asian (Cuneiform, Arabic, Sanskrit, Chinese, etc.), African (Egyptian, etc.), and American (Mayan, etc.) languages. Indo-European studies involve the comparative philology of all Indo-European languages.

Philology, with its focus on historical development (diachronic analysis), is contrasted with linguistics due to Ferdinand de Saussure's insistence on the importance of synchronic analysis. While the contrast continued with the emergence of structuralism and the emphasis of Noam Chomsky on syntax, research in historical linguistics often relies on philological materials and findings.

Etymology

The term philology is derived from the Greek (philología), from the terms (phílos) 'love, affection, loved, beloved, dear, friend' and (lógos) '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 . 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 (philólogos) meant 'fond of discussion or argument, talkative', in Hellenistic Greek, also implying an excessive ("sophistic") preference of argument over the love of true wisdom, (philósophos).

As an allegory of literary erudition, philologia appears in fifth-century postclassical 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 Giacomo Leopardi and Friedrich Schlegel to Nietzsche".

Branches

Comparative

thumb|Cover of Indo-European Philology: Historical and Comparative by [[William Burley Lockwood (1969)]]

Philology's interest in ancient languages led ultimately to the deciphering, and the pursued study of what was, in the 19th century, "exotic" languages, for the light they could cast on understanding the origins of older texts.

The comparative linguistics branch of philology studies the relationship between languages. Whereas speculation of a common ancestor language from which all these descended has its roots in the philologist's adherence to the biblical idea of humankind's common ancestry - the common ancestor language of Indoeuropean languages is now named Proto-Indo-European - no doubt this interest proved to be a dynamic factor.

Similarities between Sanskrit and European languages were first noted in the early 19th century. This is noted in Juan Mascaró's introduction to his translation of the Bhagavad Gita, in which he dates the first Gita translation to 1785 (by Charles Williams). Mascaro claims the linguist Alexander Hamilton stopped in Paris in 1802 after returning from India, and taught Sanskrit to the German critic Friedrich von Schlegel. Mascaro holds this as the beginning of modern study of the roots of the Indo-European languages.

Textual

Philology also includes the study of texts and their history. It includes elements of textual criticism, trying to reconstruct an author's original text based on variant copies of manuscripts. This branch of research arose among ancient scholars in the Greek-speaking world of the 4th century BC, who desired to establish a standard text of popular authors for both sound interpretation and secure transmission. Since that time, the original principles of textual criticism have been improved and applied to other widely distributed texts such as the Bible. Scholars have tried to reconstruct the original readings of the Bible from the manuscript variants. This method was applied to classical studies and medieval texts as a way to reconstruct the author's original work. The method produced so-called "critical editions", which provided a reconstructed text accompanied by a "critical apparatus", i.e., footnotes that listed the various manuscript variants available, enabling scholars to gain insight into the entire manuscript tradition and argue about the variants. In British English usage, and British academia, philology remains largely synonymous with "historical linguistics", while in U.S. English, and U.S. academia, the wider meaning of "study of a language's grammar, history and literary tradition" remains more widespread. Based on the harsh critique of Friedrich Nietzsche, some U.S. scholars since the 1980s have viewed philology as responsible for a narrowly scientistic study of language and literature. This use of falsification can be seen in the debate surrounding the etymology of the Old English character Unferth from the heroic epic poem Beowulf.

James Turner further disagrees with how the use of the term is dismissed in the academic world, stating that due to its branding as a "simpleminded approach to their subject" the term has become unknown to college-educated students, furthering the stereotypes of "scrutiny of ancient Greek or Roman texts of a nit-picking classicist" and only the "technical research into languages and families".

In The Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis, the main character, Elwin Ransom, is a philologist – as was Lewis' close friend J. R. R. Tolkien.

Dr. Edward Morbius, one of the main characters in the science fiction film Forbidden Planet, is a philologist.

Philip, the main character of Christopher Hampton's 'bourgeois comedy' The Philanthropist, is a professor of philology in an English university town.

Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, the main character in Alexander McCall Smith's 1997 comic novel Portuguese Irregular Verbs is a philologist, educated at Cambridge.

The main character in the Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film in 2012, Footnote, is a Hebrew philologist, and a significant part of the film deals with his work.

The main character of the science fiction TV show Stargate SG-1, Dr. Daniel Jackson, is mentioned as having a PhD in philology.

See also

  • – Philology in China
  • – Philology in Japan

References

</references>

  • Philology in Runet—(A special web search through the philological sites of Runet)
  • v: Topic:German philology
  • CogLit: Literature and Cognitive Linguistics
  • A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism, and Philology (ed. José Ángel García Landa, University of Zaragoza, Spain)