philology
\ fi-LOL-uh-jee \, noun;
1.Obsolete . the love of learning and literature.
2.the study of literary texts and of written records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form, and the determination of their meaning.
3.(especially in older use) linguistics, especially historical and comparative linguistics.
Quotes:
Grimm helped establish nineteenth-century philology as a discipline that involved the "study of texts leading to comparative study of language leading to comprehension of its evolution."
-- Richard Mathews, Fantasy: The Liberation of Imagination , 2002
Where there is one person that is interested in philology , there are hundreds that are interested in machines and wheat.
-- Dr. L. H. Bailey, "Nature Notes," The West Virginia School Journal , 1894
Origin:
Philology joins philo- , a combining form from the Greek term meaning "loving," and -logy , a suffix used to refer to writing, discourses and collections. It entered English in the late 1300s.
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