A person who studies or is devoted to ancient languages, texts, or styles; someone who favors archaism.
From Greek 'archaios' (ancient) plus '-ist' (a follower or practitioner). Archaists emerged as a recognized group during the Renaissance when classical scholarship became fashionable among intellectuals.
Archaists are kind of like linguistic archaeologists—they dig into old texts not to preserve dead language, but because they believe ancient ways of speaking held beauty and truth that modern language lost!
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