Philologist’s Day 2023: the history and traditions of the holiday

None of us can live a day without speaking. It is necessary not only to communicate with others, but also alone with yourself – while reading books or just to formulate thoughts. Beautiful, literate speech, knowledge of the established rules and understanding of the mechanisms of language development, creation and interpretation of various texts is the area of ​​activity of a philologist.

The word “philology” in Greek means “love of the word.” Indeed, who else is so reverent about our vocabulary as philologists? In May, people of this unusual profession celebrate their professional holiday.

When is Philologist’s Day celebrated?

Philologist’s Day is celebrated annually 25 May. In 2023, it will be celebrated by all those involved: students and teachers of philological faculties, linguists, translators, linguists and just connoisseurs of the native language. Interestingly, the Day of the Philologist falls on the day after another holiday related to the language – the Day of Slavic Writing and Culture.

history of the holiday

Contrary to popular belief, philology does not only deal with the analysis of language. This is a whole area of ​​humanitarian knowledge, which includes a number of sciences: literary criticism, ethnography, folklore, linguistics and others. Through the study of literature in one form or another, philologists study the culture of different peoples.

The earliest attempts at theorization of language arose in ancient India and the ancient world, when the first philologists created the earliest (XNUMXrd millennium BC) genre interpretations of texts. In ancient Greece and ancient Rome, high skill reached another branch of ancient philology – rhetoric, that is, the art of beautiful speech construction, which was used for public speaking.

The first philologist is called the ancient Greek philosopher Eratosthenes, who, however, was successful in many areas, including mathematics, music and astronomy.

The word “philology” came to Our Country in the XNUMXth century. Until that moment, domestic scientists were engaged in “verbal sciences”.

Philologist’s Day began to be celebrated in the late 80s – early 90s. The holiday itself is international, but it came to our country thanks to the philological faculty of Moscow State University – it was here that this date was celebrated for the first time in Our Country.

Holiday traditions

Libraries and cultural institutions arrange themed evenings and prepare a festive program.

In universities, conferences, round tables and seminars are often timed to coincide with the holiday. The departments hold quizzes and arrange informal gatherings and skits. Since the holiday falls at the end of spring – the time for the delivery of term papers and dissertations and dissertations, students and teachers often celebrate successful defenses on this day.

10 interesting facts about the language

Every day we speak , but are we really familiar with its history and peculiarities? We share a selection of interesting facts, the knowledge of which can be boasted when meeting with a philologist.

1. is one of the most widely spoken languages ​​in the world. According to conservative estimates, it is spoken by about 260 million people.
2. In , there are words that begin with the letter “Y” – usually these are toponyms in the regions of Our Country. For example: Ygyatta is a river in Yakutia, Ydzhydparma is a hill in Komi, Yllymakh is a village in Yakutia, Ynakhsyt is a village in Yakutia, Ytyk-kuel is a village in Yakutia.
3. Curses and other indecent words were called by our chaste ancestors up to the XNUMXth century “absurd verbs.”
4. In , there are only 7 words that are common nouns and end in “-so”: meat, millet, wheel, serso, lasso, peso, collection.
5. In , there are only a few words in which three letters “e” are written in a row: zmeeeed and long-necked (and other derivatives: torticollis, short-necked).
6. Almost all words that begin with the letter “f” are borrowed and not originally . At one time, Pushkin was proud that in The Tale of Tsar Saltan he used only one such word – “fleet”.
7. In modern , a solid sign is a fairly rare letter, usually found in the middle of a word. But a few hundred years ago, everything was different: a solid sign was called “er”, it was attributed to the end of words, the last letter of which was a consonant. For example, in the late 50th century edition of War and Peace, there are more than 70 solid characters on each page – if you rewrite them all, they will take up XNUMX pages in total.
8. In the Guinness Book of Records, the word “highly contemplative” got into the longest – 35 letters. Although this, of course, is not the limit. For example, the word “thousand nine hundred and eighty nine millimeters”, it has 46 letters. And here is the longest abbreviation that really existed (56 letters): “NIIOMTPLABOPARMBETZHELBETRABSBORMONIMONKONOTDTEHSTROMONT”. It stands for “Research Laboratory for Concrete Reinforcement Operations and Reinforced Concrete Works for the Construction of Prefabricated Monolithic and Monolithic Structures of the Technology Department of the Construction and Installation Administration of the Academy of Construction and Architecture of the USSR.” If, reading these words, you feel uneasy, you may have hippopotamusmonstroseskippedalophobia (33 letters) – fear of long words.
9. There are in not only long, but also literally endless words. These are the words “grandfather” and “grandmother”, to which the prefixes “great-” are added. Theoretically, they can be placed before the beginning of a word an infinite number of times.
10. More than 70 – that’s how many words of the language begin with the letter “Y”. But in everyday life, we can rarely remember anything other than yoga, iodine, yogurt and Yoshkar-Ola.