Classical philology determines if preserved Greek and Latin texts are true to the original authors’ meaning. It involves careful examination of words and annotations, and understanding the linguistic and historical culture of antiquity. Critics argue that ambiguity makes it impossible to determine word meanings, but philologists use comparisons with other texts to fix meanings.
The written works of classical antiquity were sometimes rewritten, copied, or translated centuries after they were conceived and composed. The job of classical philology is to determine whether preserved Greek and Latin texts from antiquity are true to the meaning and intent of the original authors. A classical philologist is essentially trying to determine whether we have a corrected version of the original manuscript. This involves careful examination of individual words within the text and careful reading of any comments or annotations added to the text over the centuries.
The term philology comes from the Greek philologos. In antiquity, philologos referred to a commentator on ancient literary manuscripts. It meant “he to whom speech is dear”. These works contained many words whose meaning could be unclear, uncertain, or mistranslated. A classical philologist tries to ensure that the interpretation of these texts is as correct as possible.
To discover and understand the correct meaning of an ancient text, the classical philologist must in a certain sense enter into the linguistic and historical culture of antiquity. He looks for the precise meanings of the words as they would have been understood at that moment. The premise is that the literature of any culture and era should only be interpreted by reading the work as the original author intended it to be read by his contemporaries. This implies not imposing modern interpretations or meanings on the words of the text. The intricacies of language and ideas existing at the time of writing the work must be discovered through careful research.
In classical philology the context of the words in the individual passages of a manuscript is important. Inconsistencies in word usage between different sections of the work could indicate errors in copying or incorrect translation. There should be consistency in the meaning given to a word throughout the text. Sometimes a search of the writer’s complete body of work is necessary to determine what the author’s general ideas were. This methodology does not always lead to certainty about the meanings of specific words, but creates fixed boundaries for meanings.
Critics in the field of classical philology argue that there are too many ambiguities in words to fix any definite meaning on them, especially after centuries of linguistic change. There may be changes in idioms, changes in the meaning of words, or the complete disappearance of a word’s use. The passage of time alone makes it impossible to objectively determine the meanings of words.
The answer of classical philology is that even if there is no certainty about the meaning of some words, this does not mean that this is true of all words. Evidence of word meaning can be gleaned by comparing an author’s work with other texts by him and with those of his contemporaries. An exhaustive search can lead you not only to fix the meaning of a word, but also to understand why the author was using it.
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