Re: OT: Colleges and linguishtics and philology, oh my!

>--- Christopher B Wright <faceloran@...> wrote:
>> Well, I'm fifteen right now, and next year I'm going
>> to be taking some
>> college courses. Yes, I'm early, for two reasons.
>> First, I did tenth
>> grade over the summer. Second, I'm skipping most or
>> all of 12th grade.

Matt M.E.S. wrote:
>Good for you!  I'm 26, and everyday I feel more and
>more like I should be back in 12th grade :/.

Congratulations indeed.  And from waaay past 26, I frequently feel the need
to be back in some grade or other.........

>> Anyway, I'm planning on going to the University of
>> Rochester (in New
>> York, in the USA) for linguistics. I was wondering
>> if there are better
>> schools to go to.>
That's a difficult call; there may be, there may not be.  At the
undergraduate level, it may not be crucial.
BTW isn't "Sally Caves" at Rochester? Doug Ball ?  Or am I confusing UR with
SUNY something-or -other? (I/m back after 3weeks of no-mail and haven't read
all the archive yet, so someone may have answered this already.)

>> Actually, I'm wondering whether I should get a
>> degree in philology
>> instead. Is there a difference? If there is, where
>> can I get a degree in
>> philology? And where is best to go for a degree in
>> philology or
>> linguistics?
Michael Poxon wrote:
>Philology is geared toward historical and comparative linguistics and tends
to be very heavily geared towards Indo-European. Linguistics as taught is
much more general and tends to include all the traditional fields of
language study as well as encompassing cutting-edge research and ideas. At
least that's my perception. I did linguistics but always had a hankering
toward philology.>

That's an accurate, and very polite, way of stating the difference.
Otherwise, most card-carrying linguists _in the US_  nowadays would consider
"philology" a rather quaint, if not downright pejorative term, even though
historically it antedates "linguistics" by a good bit, I think.  It may
still be used in Europe; I think one of our Russian members mentioned having
a degree in Philology.

Like Michael, my own inclination was always more "philological", and I
ignored the other stuff as much as I could (probably to my peril, as it
turned out.........)

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