Before the 20th century, the term philology, first attested in 1716,^[5] was commonly used to refer to the science of language, which was then predominantly historical in focus.^[6] Since Ferdinand de Saussure's insistence on the importance of synchronic analysis, however, this focus has shifted^[7] and the term "philology" is now generally used for the "study of a language's grammar, history, and literary tradition", especially in the United States,^[8] where it was never as popular as it was elsewhere (in the sense of the "science of language").^[5]
Although the term "linguist" in the sense of "a student of language" dates from 1641,^[9] the term "linguistics" is first attested in 1847.^[9] It is now the usual academic term in English for the scientific study of language.
The term linguist, used for one who studies language, applies within the field to someone who either studies linguistics or uses linguistic methodologies to study groups of languages or particular languages. Outside the field, this term is commonly used to refer to people who speak many languages fluently.^[10]