Geoffrey Horrocks (philologist)


Geoffrey Horrocks is a British philologist and Emeritus Professor of Comparative Philology at the University of Cambridge.

Education and early life

Horrocks has said that "From an early age I was always interested in languages... The key moment was at the age of 13, when I had to choose between German and Greek at school,... and like tossing a coin I chose Greek mainly because the alphabet looked intriguing. Then I found I really liked it."
Horrocks received his PhD from the University of Cambridge.

Career

Horrocks is Professor of Comparative Philology and Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. Before that he worked at the University of London.
The focus of his research is the history, change and structure of the Greek language from the earliest evidence and also the history and structure of Latin up to the early Middle Ages. In linguistic terms, he is interested in linguistic theory, historical linguistics and language change as well as syntax, semantics and morphology.
His book "Review of “Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers” was praised by academics.
Together with David Holton and with the participation of Panagiotis Toufexis, Horrocks directed the research project "Grammar of Medieval Greek" at the University of Cambridge from 2004 to 2009.

Works