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Germanic philology is the philological study of the
Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, ...
, particularly from a comparative or historical perspective. The beginnings of research into the Germanic languages began in the 16th century, with the discovery of literary texts in the earlier phases of the languages. Early modern publications dealing with
Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...
culture appeared in the 16th century, e.g. ''Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus'' (Olaus Magnus, 1555) and the first edition of the 13th century '' Gesta Danorum'' ( Saxo Grammaticus), in 1514. In 1603, Melchior Goldast made the first edition of
Middle High German Middle High German (MHG; german: Mittelhochdeutsch (Mhd.)) is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. High ...
poetry, Tyrol and Winsbeck, including a commentary which focused 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 pace of publication increased during the 17th century with Latin translations of the Edda (notably Peder Resen's ''Edda Islandorum'' of 1665). Germanic philology, together with
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...
as a whole, emerged as a serious academic discipline in the early 19th century, pioneered particularly in
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...
by such linguists as Jacob Grimm, who discovered Grimm's law, on the sound change across Germanic languages. 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 focused on medieval English studies, medieval German studies, etc. Only relatively few universities can afford to offer Comparative linguistics as a discrete field.


Subfields

*
English studies English studies (usually called simply English) is an academic discipline taught in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education in English-speaking countries; it is not to be confused with English taught as a foreign language, which ...
* German studies * Dutch studies * Scandinavian studies * Runology *
comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their history, historical relatedness. Genetic relat ...
(
Common Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic bra ...
)


References


See also

* The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 16th-century introductions {{philology-stub