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Philology
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Philology, Etymology, is the [L]ove of words. It is most accurately defined as an affinity toward the learning of the backgrounds as well as the current usages of spoken or written methods of human communication. The commonality of studied languages is more important than their origin or age, though those factors are important as well. The term originally meant a love (Greek Φιλος or philos) of (a) word (Greek λογος or logos). In a sense, to understand a language, philology seeks to understand the origins of that language, and so it is often defined as the study of ancient texts and languages, although this is a rather narrow view and is entirely inaccurate.
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Philology was not a well developed discipline in Kyivan Rus'. Byzantine Greek, the language from which models for philological study would most likely have come, was virtually unknown to the East Slavs; Bulgarian translations served as primary sources. The oldest extant Kyivan philological text, for example is "Tropes" [O obrazekhÕ] by the 9th-century Byzantine grammarian George Choeroboskos, found in the 1073 Sviatoslav Izbornik, a miscellany translated for the Kyivan grand prince from a Bulgarian original.
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Philology has its heroes, its contributors, its recognizable names. A formal pantheon of philology, whether in Europe or in China, would require more erudition than the present author can command. These pages (arranged in rough chronological order, within each tradition) should instead be thought of as a sample: not quite random, but far from authoritative. They are included here chiefly to give beginners a sense of reality, and a feeling of companionship across the ages.
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"For well over a hundred years the American Journal of Philology has published some of the best work in classical scholarship. The journal continues to maintain its high standards of excellence as it has evolved to embrace the more diverse approaches to the ancient world that are currently revitalizing the discipline. As a result, it represents the best of both old and new."
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The concept of Philology remained largely unknown until the seventeenth century, when a young upstart prick known as Martin Luther began translating texts from Olde Buggerish to Engrish to help Tasmanian independence. Thanks to Martin's so-called "heroic" actions, he unlocked a gateway back into the hellish nightmare that is the study of languages, and exposed a new generation to the horrors of the foreign tongue. To his credit, Luther himself tried to stop the spread of Philology in his later years, but was overpowered in his attempts by the vile and immoral Humanists, who wished to use the homosexual anecdotes contained in the ancient Greek manuscripts as recital material during their many orgies. Thus, Philology was pased down through the heathens, to forever plague mankind once more.
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Since its founding in 1880 by Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, the American Journal of Philology has helped to shape American classical scholarship. Today the Journal has achieved worldwide recognition as a forum for international exchange among classicists and philologists by publishing original research in Greco-Roman literature, culture, and linguistics.
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