Editing Philology (section)

== Branches ==

=== Comparative ===
{{main|Comparative philology}}
[[File:Indo European philology historical and comparative 1969.jpg|thumb|Cover of ''Indo-European Philology: Historical and Comparative'' by [[William Burley Lockwood]] (1969)]]

The [[comparative linguistics]] branch of philology studies the relationship between languages. Similarities between [[Sanskrit]] and [[European languages]] were first noted in the early 16th century<ref>This is noted in Juan Mascaro's introduction to his translation of the ''Bhagavad Gita'', in which he dates the first ''Gita'' translation to 1785 (by Charles Williams). Mascaro claims the linguist [[Alexander Hamilton (linguist)|Alexander Hamilton]] stopped in Paris in 1802 after returning from India, and taught Sanskrit to the German critic [[Friedrich von Schlegel]]. Mascaro says this is the beginning of modern study of the roots of the Indo-European languages.</ref> and led to speculation of a common ancestor language from which all these descended. It is now named [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-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 and [[decipher]]ing the origins of older texts.

=== Textual ===
{{main|Textual criticism}}
Philology also includes the study of texts and their history. It includes elements of [[textual 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 the [[Bible]]. 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.<ref name="GB1" />

A related study method known as [[higher criticism]] studies the authorship, date, and provenance of text to place such text in a historical context.<ref name="GB1" /> As these philological issues are often inseparable from issues of interpretation, there is no clear-cut boundary between philology and [[hermeneutics]].<ref name="GB1" /> 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,<ref name="GB1" /> especially in historical linguistics, where it is important to study the actual recorded materials. The movement known as ''[[New Philology (medieval studies)|new 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.<ref name=":1" /> Supporters of new philology insist on a strict "diplomatic" approach: a faithful rendering of the text exactly as found in the manuscript, without emendations.

=== Cognitive ===
{{main|Cognitive philology}}
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.

=== Decipherment ===
In the case of [[Bronze Age literature]], philology includes the prior [[decipherment]] of the language under study. This has notably been the case with the [[Ancient Egyptian language|Egyptian]], [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]], [[Akkadian language|Assyrian]], [[Hittite language|Hittite]], [[Ugaritic]], and [[Luwian language|Luwian]] languages. Beginning with the famous decipherment and translation of the [[Rosetta Stone]] by [[Jean-François Champollion]] in 1822, some individuals attempted to decipher the writing systems of the [[Ancient Near East]] and [[Aegean civilization|Aegean]]. In the case of [[Old Persian]] and [[Mycenaean Greek]], decipherment yielded older records of languages already known from slightly more recent traditions ([[Middle Persian]] and [[Ancient Greek|Alphabetic Greek]]).

Work on the ancient languages of the Near East progressed rapidly. In the mid-19th century, [[Sir Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baronet|Henry Rawlinson]] and others deciphered the [[Behistun Inscription]], which records the same text in [[Old Persian language|Old Persian]], [[Elamite language|Elamite]], and [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]], using a variation of [[Cuneiform script|cuneiform]] for each language. The elucidation of cuneiform led to the decipherment of [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]]. [[Hittite language|Hittite]] was deciphered in 1915 by [[Bedřich Hrozný]].

[[Linear B]], a script used in the ancient Aegean, was deciphered in 1952 by [[Michael Ventris]] and [[John Chadwick]], who demonstrated that it recorded an early form of Greek, now known as [[Mycenaean language|Mycenaean Greek]]. [[Linear A]], the writing system that records the still-unknown language of the [[Minoan Civilization|Minoans]], resists deciphering, despite many attempts.

Work continues on scripts such as the [[Maya script|Maya]], with great progress since the initial breakthroughs of the phonetic approach championed by [[Yuri 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 in [[Mesoamerica]]. The code is described as a [[logosyllabic]] style of writing.