Germanic philology
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- This article is about the history of the discipline, for linguistic phenomena, see Germanic languages and the navigation template below.
Germanic philology is the study of the Germanic languages particularly from a comparative or historical perspective.
The beginnings of research into the Germanic languages began in the 15th and 16th century, with the discovery of literary texts in the earlier phases of the languages. Partly this was connected with nationalisms, and with the new interest in the vernacular languages, which gave rise, for example, to the "Adamic theory" of some Germanic languages, which claimed their direct descent from the Garden of Eden. In 1603, Melchior Goldast made the first edition of Middle High German poetry, Tyrol and Winsbeck, including a commentary which focussed on linguistic problems and set the tone for the approach to such works in the subsequent centuries. He later gave similar attention to the Old High German Benedictine Rule. In England, Cotton's studies of the manuscripts in his collection marks the beginnings of work on Old English language.
The main focus of linguistic research in the 17th century, both in the classics and in the medieval forms of the vernaculars, lay in the compiling of dictionaries.
Germanic philology began as a serious academic discipline in the early 19th century, pioneered particularly in Germany by such linguists as Jakob Grimm. Important 19th century scholars include Henry Sweet and Matthias Lexer.
The structure of the modern university means that for the most part work on the field is focussed on medieval English studies, medieval German studies, etc. Only relatively few universities can afford to offer Comparative linguistics as a discrete field.
