Philology (fromAncient Greekφιλολογία (philología) 'love of word') is the study oflanguage inoral andwrittenhistorical sources. It is the intersection oftextual criticism,literary criticism,history, andlinguistics with strong ties toetymology.^[1][2][3] Philology is also defined as the study of literary texts and oral and written records, the establishment of theirauthenticity and their original form, and the determination of their meaning. A person who pursues this kind of study is known as aphilologist. In older usage, especially British, philology is more general, coveringcomparative andhistorical linguistics.^[4][5]

Classical philology studiesclassical languages. Classical philology principally originated from theLibrary of Pergamum and theLibrary of Alexandria^[6] around the fourth century BC, continued by Greeks and Romans throughout theRoman andByzantine Empire. It was eventually resumed by European scholars of theRenaissance, where it was soon joined by philologies of other European (Romance,Germanic,Celtic,Slavic, etc.), Asian (Arabic,Persian,Sanskrit,Chinese, etc.), and African (Egyptian,Nubian, etc.) languages.Indo-European studies involve the comparative philology of allIndo-European languages.

Philology, with its focus on historical development (diachronic analysis), is contrasted withlinguistics due toFerdinand de Saussure's insistence on the importance ofsynchronic analysis. While the contrast continued with the emergence ofstructuralism and the emphasis ofNoam Chomsky onsyntax, research in historical linguistics often relies on philological materials and findings.

The termphilology is derived from theGreekφιλολογία (philología),^[7] from the termsφίλος (phílos) 'love, affection, loved, beloved, dear, friend' andλόγος (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 ofλόγος. The term changed little with the Latinphilologia, and later entered the English language in the 16th century, from theMiddle Frenchphilologie, in the sense of 'love of literature'.

Theadjectiveφιλόλογος (philólogos) meant 'fond of discussion or argument, talkative', inHellenistic Greek, also implying an excessive ("sophistic") preference of argument over the love of true wisdom,φιλόσοφος (philósophos).

As anallegory 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 understandingsound laws andlanguage change, the "golden age of philology" lasted throughout the 19th century, or "fromGiacomo Leopardi andFriedrich Schlegel toNietzsche".^[8]

Thecomparative linguistics branch of philology studies the relationship between languages. Similarities betweenSanskrit andEuropean languages were first noted in the early 16th century^[9] and led to speculation of a common ancestor language from which all these descended. It is now namedProto-Indo-European. Philology's interest in ancient languages led to the study of what was, in the 18th century, "exotic" languages, for the light they could cast on problems in understanding anddeciphering the origins of older texts.

Philology also includes the study of texts and their history. It includes elements oftextual 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 theBible. 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.^[10]

A related study method known ashigher criticism studies the authorship, date, and provenance of text to place such text in a historical context.^[10] As these philological issues are often inseparable from issues of interpretation, there is no clear-cut boundary between philology andhermeneutics.^[10] When text has a significant political or religious influence (such as the reconstruction of Biblical texts), scholars have difficulty reaching objective conclusions.

Some scholars avoid all critical methods of textual philology,^[10] especially in historical linguistics, where it is important to study the actual recorded materials. The movement known asnew philology has rejected textual criticism because it injects editorial interpretations into the text and destroys the integrity of the individual manuscript, hence damaging the reliability of the data.^[11] Supporters of new philology insist on a strict "diplomatic" approach: a faithful rendering of the text exactly as found in the manuscript, without emendations.

Another branch of philology, cognitive philology, studies written and oral texts. Cognitive philology considers these oral texts as the results of human mental processes. This science compares the results of textual science with the results of experimental research of both psychology and artificial intelligence production systems.

In the case ofBronze Age literature, philology includes the priordecipherment of the language under study. This has notably been the case with theEgyptian,Sumerian,Assyrian,Hittite,Ugaritic, andLuwian languages. Beginning with the famous decipherment and translation of theRosetta Stone byJean-François Champollion in 1822, some individuals attempted to decipher the writing systems of theAncient Near East andAegean. In the case ofOld Persian andMycenaean Greek, decipherment yielded older records of languages already known from slightly more recent traditions (Middle Persian andAlphabetic Greek).

Work on the ancient languages of the Near East progressed rapidly. In the mid-19th century,Henry Rawlinson and others deciphered theBehistun Inscription, which records the same text inOld Persian,Elamite, andAkkadian, using a variation ofcuneiform for each language. The elucidation of cuneiform led to the decipherment ofSumerian.Hittite was deciphered in 1915 byBedřich Hrozný.

Linear B, a script used in the ancient Aegean, was deciphered in 1952 byMichael Ventris andJohn Chadwick, who demonstrated that it recorded an early form of Greek, now known asMycenaean Greek.Linear A, the writing system that records the still-unknown language of theMinoans, resists deciphering, despite many attempts.

Work continues on scripts such as theMaya, with great progress since the initial breakthroughs of the phonetic approach championed byYuri Knorozov and others in the 1950s. Since the late 20th century, the Maya code has been almost completely deciphered, and the Mayan languages are among the most documented and studied inMesoamerica. The code is described as alogosyllabic style of writing.

In English-speaking countries, use of the term "philology" to describe work on languages and works of literature, which had become synonymous with the practices of German scholars, was abandoned as a consequence of anti-German feelings followingWorld War I.^[12] 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".^[13][14] InBritish English usage, and British academia,philology remains largely synonymous with "historical linguistics", while inUS English, and US academia, the wider meaning of "study of a language's grammar, history and literary tradition" remains more widespread.^[15][16] Based on the harsh critique of Friedrich Nietzsche, some US scholars since the 1980s have viewed philology as responsible for a narrowlyscientistic study of language and literature.^[12]

Disagreements in the modern day of this branch of study are followed with the likes of how the method is treated among other scholars, as noted by both the philologists R.D Fulk and Leonard Neidorf who have been quoted saying "This field "philology's commitment to falsification renders it "at odds with what many literary scholars believe because the purpose of philology is to narrow the range of possible interpretations rather than to treat all reasonable ones as equal".^[17] This use of falsification can be seen in the debate surrounding the etymology of the Old English characterUnferth from the heroic epic poemBeowulf.

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"^[18] 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".^[19]

InThe Space Trilogy byC. S. Lewis, the main character, Elwin Ransom, is a philologist – as was Lewis' close friendJ. R. R. Tolkien.

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

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

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

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

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

• American Journal of Philology
• Codicology – Study of codices or manuscript books
• Elocution – Study of formal speaking in pronunciation, grammar, style, and tone
• Etymology – Study of the origin and evolution of words
• Lexicography – Art and science of compiling dictionaries
• Lexicology – Linguistic discipline studying words
• Palaeography – Study of handwriting and manuscripts
• Stylistics – Branch of applied linguisticsPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Textual scholarship – Academic analysis of texts
• Western canon – Cultural classics valued in the West
• Kaozheng – Philology in China
• Kokugaku – Philology in Japan

• Philology in Runet—(A special web search through the philological sites ofRunet)
• 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)
• Giles, Peter; Sievers, Eduard (1911)."Philology" .Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). pp. 414–438.