Hey everyone,
I am nineteen years old and I love writing
I'll post an essay about philology and it's essence
Philology and its essence:
Philology is the comparative historical study of classical and modern languages. It has also been defined as the scientific study of written records (chiefly literary works of art) in order to set up accurate texts and determine their meaning, often in terms of linguistic and cultural history. Philology have also been defined by some scholars in different dimension. Some see it as the study of ancient or modern languages. Other sect see philology from a historical perspective or angle. For instance, Turner believes that, philology should be used as an umbrella for all humanistic study
It is worthy of note that, philology has revolved over the years to the degree that; many now leisurely mistake it for linguistics. Due to its over-revolved nature, many find it hard to differentiate the usefulness of philology in modern era and mistake it for linguistics, since both share same similarity. It has even been canvassed that, philology should be used as an umbrella for all humanistic study.
But it must be borne in mind that, philology plays serious role in most academic disciplines that deal with chronological, cultural appraisal of languages and law evidently falls within this category. For this reason, the knowledge, study and appreciation of philology is inevitable to lawyers and law students.
Query:
Is linguistics same as philology or is the former mere synonym for the latter?
In attempting to answer this query, there is need to also appreciate that, philology is the comparative historical study of ancient and modern languages and as such, is distinct from study of tongues or sounds.
It is also worthy to note that; a person who majors in philology is addressed as philologist, while a linguist is one who majors in linguistics. Linguistics is the science that studies language, its origin, structure and modifications.
In ancient days, languages vary and some of these languages are coded with signs, symbols. It is with the aid of Philologists and through in depth study of these signs, symbols, codes that they were able to be translated into languages we easily read, study and discuss today.
Query:
- What is the nexus between philology and Linguistics?
- What are these symbolic signs/logic used at this era to convey information?
These afore-cited queries will be examined hereunder.
Philology/ Linguistics
Philology has often times been misconstrued for linguistics by law students and lawyers alike because both share similarity as discipline. For instance, both are primarily concerned with study of languages.
Query:
Of what use is philology to the knowledge or study of law?
Law is one of the oldest profession in the history of mankind and laws, issues of law and logical reasoning are canvassed with languages. Law is also a profession that holds tenaciously to its obsolete legal terms. Among these terms include; ab initio, res judicata, bonafide, ubi jus ube remedum. Some of these archaic words are still used in court proceedings, legal texts published in this 21st century. In most scenarios, lawyers and law students, use these obsolete terms in their day to day conversation either to bamboozle clients or impress their audience.
Let us consider this extract from the case of Rano v Rano, to drive home a point about philology and its importance in appreciation of ancient/modern languages.
The learned trial judge erred, misdirected himself when he suo moto introduced an issue of fact not raised anywhere in the entire pleadings of parties to say that the purchase of the house and the payment was....
Philology helps us understand the history, origin and role legal terms played in our contemporary lives. Philology focuses more on the text or the structure of language, whereas philologists concentrate on the relation of language/text to its social context. Philology, like any other type of discipline is categorized into two major types: classical and modern philology.
Philology also has key offshoots or branches and the commonest of these offshoots or branches will later be examined. But before doing that, there is need to appreciate that other disciplines of study, just like philology have their respective distinct ways of study. For instance, law is different from political science and politics science differs from physiology; so are their respective style of study and investigations. In these listed discipline, there exist 3 key primary ways or dimension by which investigations are conducted and same applies to philology. Investigations in most disciplines are conducted by either adopting:
style of investigations,
research methods, or
epistemologies
and same applies to philology and linguistics.
