Philology

Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.

Philology is more commonly defined as the study of literary texts as well as 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 involves the study of the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and of literature of the Greek and Roman periods.

Etymology

The term philology is derived from the Ancient Greek φιλολογία (philología), from the terms φίλος (phílos, "love") and λόγος (lógos, "word, reason"), expressing "love of learning, love of wisdom, fondness for words," or more succinctly, "the love of words or of reason".

Branches of Philology

Philology has a number of branches, including:

• Comparative philology, which is the scientific reconstruction and study of extinct languages based on the comparative study of surviving languages
• Decipherment, the analysis of ancient and extinct languages and scripts
• Etymology, the study of the origin of words
• Graphemics, the study of systems of writing
• Lexicology, the study of words
• Morphology, the study of the internal structure of words
• Phonetics, the study of the physical sounds of human speech
• Semantics, the study of meaning
• Syntax, the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages

See also

• Linguistics
• Literary criticism
• Textual criticism

References

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Philology

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