J.R.R. Tolkien’s academic field at Oxford included philology, the historical study of language.
Tolkien studied Classics at Exeter College, Oxford, before changing his focus to English language and literature. His professional work centered on historical linguistics, especially the development and relationships of languages. He studied Old English, Middle English, Old Norse, Welsh, Finnish, and other languages that influenced his scholarship and creative language-building.
Philology was not simply the memorization of vocabulary. It examined how languages change across time and how texts preserve evidence of those changes. Tolkien’s expertise in this area informed both his teaching and his invented languages, including Quenya and Sindarin.
The term is sometimes confused with modern linguistics, though the fields overlap. Tolkien was also a literary scholar, but philology most specifically describes the historical language-centered discipline that shaped his academic career and his fiction.