J.R.R. Tolkien’s academic specialty in the study of historical languages was known as philology.
Philology examines languages through historical texts, comparing words, grammar, sound changes, and literary traditions. Tolkien was especially knowledgeable about Germanic and medieval languages, including Old English, Middle English, Old Norse, and Gothic. His expertise influenced both his scholarship and his fictional languages.
Philology is not simply the same as modern language teaching or literary criticism. Tolkien used detailed linguistic knowledge to explore how words and stories developed over time. His work on Beowulf, including the lecture later published as “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” helped change modern views of the poem. His invented languages, such as Quenya and Sindarin, also reflect historical language-building principles, although they belong to fiction rather than ordinary academic language history.