Everything about Philological totally explained
» see comparative linguistics for the narrower field of "comparative philology".
Philology, derived from the
Greek (
philologia, from the terms
philos meaning "loved, beloved, dear, friend" and
logos "word, articulation, reason") is a branch of the
human sciences dealing with
language and
literature, specifically a
literary canon, combining aspects of
grammar,
rhetoric,
historical linguistics (
etymology and
language change),
interpretation of authors,
textual criticism and the
critical traditions associated with a given language.
Philology considers both
form and
meaning in linguistic expression, combining
linguistics and
literary studies.
Classical philology is the philology of the
Greek and
Latin and languages. Classical philology is historically primary, originating in European
Renaissance Humanism, but was soon joined by philologies of other languages both European (
Germanic,
Celtic,
Slavic etc.) and non-European (
Sanskrit,
Oriental languages such as Persian or Arabic,
Chinese etc.)
Indo-European studies involves the philology of all
Indo-European languages in comparison.
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
post-structuralism and
Chomskian linguistics with its heavy emphasis on spoken language (
performance) and
syntax.
The term
The term itself enters the English language in the 16th century, from the
Middle French philologie, in the sense of "love of literature". The Latin term
philologia could mean "love of learning", like the original Greek term,, which described love of learning, of literature as well as of argument and reasoning, reflecting range of activities included under the notion of .
The adjective meant "fond of discussion or argument, talkative", in
Hellenistic Greek also implying an excessive ("
sophistic") preference of argument over the love of true wisdom,
.
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 progresses made in understanding
sound laws and
language change, the "golden age of philology", taken to last throughout the
19th century, or "from
Friedrich Schlegel to
Nietzsche". 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.
Branches of philology
Comparative philology
One branch of philology is
comparative linguistics, which studies the relationship between languages. Similarities between
Sanskrit and
European languages were first noted in the early 16th century and led to the speculation of a common ancestor language from which all of these descended — now named
Proto-Indo-European. Philology's interest in ancient languages led to the study of what were in the 18th century "exotic" languages for the light they could cast on problems in understanding and
deciphering the origins of older texts.
Textual philology and text editing
Philology also includes the close study of texts and their history. It includes elements of
textual criticism, trying to reconstruct an author's original text based on variant manuscript copies. This branch of research arose in Biblical studies and has a long tradition, dating back to the
Reformation. Scholars have tried to reconstruct the original readings of the
Bible from the manuscript variants that have come down to us. This method was then applied to Classical Studies and to medieval texts for the reconstruction of the author's original. This method produced so-called
critical editions which provided a reconstructed text accompanied by a
critical apparatus, for example footnotes listing the various manuscript variants available, thus enabling scholars to gain insight into the entire manuscript tradition and argue about variants.
A related study method, known as
higher criticism, which studies the authorship, date, and provenance of texts, places a text in a historical context. These philological issues are often inseparable from issues of interpretation, and thus there's no clear-cut boundary between philology and
hermeneutics. As such, when the content of the text has a significant political or religious influence (such as the reconstruction of Biblical texts), it's difficult to find 'objective' conclusions.
As a result, some scholars avoid all critical methods of textual philology. Especially in historical linguistics it's important to study the actually recorded materials. The movement known as
New Philology has rejected textual criticism because it injects editorial interpretations into the text and destroys the integrity of the individual manuscript readings, hence damaging the reliability of the data. Supporters of New Philology insist on a strict
diplomatic, that is, faithful rendering of the text exactly as it's found in the manuscript, without emendations.
Decipherment
In the case of
Bronze Age literature, philology includes the prior
decipherment of the language in question.
This has notably been the case with the
Egyptian,
Sumerian and
Assyrian,
Hittite and
Luwian languages. Beginning with the sensational decipherment and translation of the
Rosetta Stone by
Jean-François Champollion in 1822, a number of individuals attempted to decipher the writing systems of the
Ancient Near East and
Aegean. In the case of
Old Persian and
Myceanean Greek, decipherment of writing systems yielded records of languages already known from slightly younger traditions (
Middle Persian,
Alphabetic Greek).
Work on the ancient languages of the Near East progressed rapidly. In the mid-19th century,
Henry Rawlinson and others deciphered the
Behistun Inscription, which records the same text in
Old Persian,
Elamite, and
Akkadian, using a variation of
cuneiform for each language. The understanding of cuneiform script led to the decipherment of
Sumerian.
Hittite was deciphered in 1915 by
Bedřich Hrozný.
Linear B, a language used in the ancient Aegean, was deciphered in 1952 by
Michael Ventris, who demonstrated that the script recorded an early form of Greek, now known as
Mycenaean Greek.
Linear A, the writing system which records the still unknown language of the
Minoans, resists deciphering, despite many attempts.
Work still continues on scripts such as
Maya hieroglyphics (with great progress made in the 20th century by the scholar
Yuri Knorozov) and
Etruscan (deciphered most completely by the scholar Svetislav Bilbija of the Institute of Etruscan Studies in Chicago).
Further Information
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