A classical language is any language with an independent literary tradition and a large body of ancient written literature.
Classical languages are usually extinct languages. Those that are still in use today tend to show highly diglossic characteristics in areas where they are used, as the difference between spoken and written language has widened over time.
Philology (from Ancient Greek φιλολογία (philología) 'love of word') is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of literary texts and oral and written records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form, and the determination of their meaning. A person who pursues this kind of study is known as a philologist. In older usage, especially British, philology is more general, covering comparative and historical linguistics.
Classical philology studies classical languages. Classical philology principally originated from the Library of Pergamum and the Library of Alexandria around the fourth century BC, and was continued by the Ancient Greeks and then the Romans throughout the Roman and Byzantine Empire. It was eventually resumed by European scholars of the Renaissance, where it was soon joined by philologies of other European (Romance, Germanic, Celtic, Slavic, etc.), Asian (Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Chinese, etc.), and African (Egyptian, etc.) languages. Indo-European studies involve the comparative philology of all Indo-European languages.
Edward Robinson (April 10, 1794 – January 27, 1863) was an American biblical scholar known for his magnum opus, Biblical Researches in Palestine, the first major work in biblical geography and biblical archaeology, which earned him the epithets "Father of Biblical Geography" and "Founder of Modern Palestinology."
He studied in the United States and Germany, centers of biblical scholarship and exploration of the Bible as history. He translated scriptural works from classical languages as well as German translations. His Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testament (1836; last revision, 1850) became a standard authority in the United States and was reprinted several times in Great Britain.
Classical Tibetan is a liturgical language of Tibetan Buddhism that dates from the 9th century. It particularly refers to the language of early canonical texts translated from other languages, especially Sanskrit. It is one of the handful of 'living' classical languages along with Arabic, Ge'ez, and New Persian, though it meaningfully differs from Modern Standard Tibetan.