grammatician

Grammatician is a term for a person who studies or teaches grammar. The word is an older or variant form of grammarian, derived from Latin grammaticus and used in English since the early modern period. A grammatician may analyze the structure of a language, describe its rules, or produce instruction on correct usage and syntax.

Historically, grammaticians wrote grammar manuals and commentaries that organized how languages should be taught and used. In classrooms and in early linguistic tradition, their work often carried a prescriptive aim, seeking to codify rules for spelling, punctuation, and sentence construction. In Latin and other classical languages, grammatical treatises by grammaticians formed a core part of education and informed later linguistic study.

In modern English, grammarian is the more common spelling and term, while grammatician is now rare and typically found in historical texts or as a variant. The role commonly overlaps with that of editors, language teachers, and scholars who focus on grammar, whether in descriptive or prescriptive traditions. Today, the word can refer generally to someone who studies grammar or more specifically to a person who teaches or writes about grammar in educational or editorial contexts.