The first Professor of Celtic at the University of Oxford, John Rhys, was the first person to use the name "Brython" (from ) in academia as another English language word for the Britons. He named the languages of the Britons "Brythonic", or the "Brythonic languages". Rhys used these names to be clear about what he meant, because names like "British" can be ambiguous ("with more than one meaning"). "Brythonic" and "Brythonic languages" are names that are no longer common. The names "Brittonic" and "Brittonic languages" are now more common in linguistics ("the study of languages").