What is glossophilia and a glossophile?

If you haven't studied Greek or you don't speak it you may not know that glossophile means "language lover". It stems from the two terms γλοσσα (glossa), meaning "tongue" and φιλια (philia), meaning "friendship".

"Tongue", which stems from Greek γλοσσα also means "language" in modern times. We have some English words with the "glossa" stem in it, which relates to "language". Some examples are: glossary, glossitis, and gloss (not to be confused with "gloss" which is akin to Middle High German "glosen", which means to shine). A related term to "glossa" is "glot". In English, we have words like "polyglot," meaning multilingual, and the anatomical word "glotis".

The modern English meaning from φιλια has changed greatly from it's Ancient Greek meaning given by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics. In that time φιλια meant a loving friendship that was mutual between two living things, thus excluding philia to inanimate objects. Today the meaning has changed to more of a meaning of attraction or affinity to something. Many only attribute the meaning of "-philia" or "-phile" to the sexual attraction to something such as "pedophilia" or "necrophilia". Today φιλια has a much broader meaning of attraction to multiple things such as, biology (i.e anthophilia- attraction to flowers), sexology, chemistry/physics, hobbies, and an attitude to specific nations (i.e. Francophile- lover of things French).

Wikipedia defines glossophilia as a love of language, be it foreign or mother tongue. The term refers to people with a deep and passionate love for language and the structure of language. Glossophiles often study deeply literary terminology as well as grammar, punctuation and language structure. It is often the case that a deep interest in lexical choice and imagery is common. Glossophiles also endear themselves to foreign languages and intensely study as many languages as possible. It is not uncommon for glossophiles to be capable in many languages.

The antonym of "philia" is "phobia", which is quite logic. As for me, I'm definitely a glossohile but totally a mathematikophobe!