glottology

/-jē/ (ame, mw)

glottology — noun

1. the academic study of human language — how words sound, how sentences are built,

1.名詞C2
釋義

the academic study of human language — how words sound, how sentences are built, how meaning is expressed, and how languages change over time; an older, mostly historical name for what is now usually called linguistics.

例句

Professor Mathieu taught a short course on glottology at the summer school.

domain noun used as the subject of a course

Hannah picked up an old book on glottology at a second-hand shop in Paris.

collocation: a book on glottology

同義詞
  • linguistics

    the standard modern term; use this in any present-day context

  • philology

    overlaps for historical/textual study of language, but covers literature and culture too

  • glossology

    near-synonym; also rare and old-fashioned

用法筆記

Highly formal and dated; almost always replaced by 'linguistics' in modern academic writing. Reserve for historical contexts (nineteenth-century scholarship) or when quoting older texts.

常見錯誤

❌I study glottology at school.
✅I study linguistics at school.
💡outside historical contexts, native speakers use 'linguistics'; 'glottology' sounds strange in everyday talk.
❌She is a glottology.
✅She is a linguist.' / 'She works in glottology.
💡'glottology' names the field, not the person.