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In older usage, especially British, philology is more general, covering comparative and historical linguistics.[2][3]

Classical philology studies classical languages. Classical philology principally originated from the Library of Pergamum and the Library of Alexandria[4] around the fourth century BCE, continued by Greeks and Romans throughout the Roman/Byzantine Empire. It was preserved and promoted during the Islamic Golden Age, and eventually resumed by European scholars of the Renaissance, where it was soon joined by philologies of other non-Asian (European) (Germanic, Celtic), Eurasian (Slavistics, etc.) Asian (Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Chinese, etc.) and African (Egyptian, Nubian, Songhay, etc.) languages. Indo-European studies involves the comparative philology of all Indo-European languages.




The adjective φιλόλογος (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, φιλόσοφος (philósophos).


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".[6] 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.[7] 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".[8][9] In British English usage, and in British academia, "philology" remains largely synonymous with "historical linguistics", while in US English, and US academia, the wider meaning of "study of a language's grammar, history and literary tradition" remains more widespread.[10][11] Based on the harsh critique of Friedrich Nietzsche, some US scholars since the 1980s have viewed philology as responsible for a narrowly scientistic study of language and literature.[12]



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




A related study method known as higher criticism studies the authorship, date, and provenance of text to place such text in historical context.[14] As these philological issues are often inseparable from issues of interpretation, there is no clear-cut boundary between philology and hermeneutics.[14] When text has a significant political or religious influence (such as the reconstruction of Biblical texts), scholars have difficulty reaching objective conclusions.









In popular culture[edit]

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.



See also[edit]


  1. ^ Peile, John (1880). Philology. Macmillan and Co. Retrieved 2011-07-16.
  2. ^ "philology".
  3. ^ "philology".
  4. ^ Hall, F. W. (1968). A Companion to Classical Texts. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press. pp. 22–52.
  5. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert. "φιλολογία". A Greek-English Lexicon. Retrieved 2017-05-23.
  6. ^ "Nikolaus Wegmann, Princeton University Department of German". Retrieved 2013-12-04.
  7. ^ Utz, Richard. "Them Philologists: Philological Practices and Their Discontents from Nietzsche to Cerquiglini." The Year's Work in Medievalism 26 (2011): 4–12.
  8. ^ Tolkien, J. R. R. (1923). "Philology: General Works". The Year's Work of English Studies. 4 (1): 36–37. doi:10.1093/ywes/IV.1.20.
  10. ^ A. Morpurgo Davies, History of Linguistics (1998) 4 I. 22.
  13. ^ This is noted in Juan Mascaro'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 says this is the beginning of modern study of the roots of the Indo-European languages.
  14. ^ a b c d Greetham, D. C. (1994). Textual Scholarship: An Introduction. Garland Publishing. ISBN 9780815317913. Retrieved 2011-07-16.

External links[edit]