philologist

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a scholar who studies the historical development, structure, and relationships of languages, especially through written texts

   The philologist compared sound changes across the oldest surviving manuscripts.

2. 2
   noun

   a scholar of classical language, literature, and textual interpretation

   As a classical philologist, she reconstructed the damaged Greek passage from several copies.

From philology + -ist. Philology comes through Latin philologia from Greek philologia, "love of learning or discussion," built from philos ("loving") and logos ("word, speech, study"). The modern profession developed around historical language study and the close interpretation of texts.

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