J.R.R. Tolkien studied Anglo-Saxon at Oxford before becoming a professor of English language.
At Exeter College, Oxford, Tolkien initially studied Classics, but he changed direction and completed his degree in English Language and Literature. His academic interests included Old English, Middle English, Germanic philology, and the history of words and texts.
Anglo-Saxon is the traditional name for Old English, the language used in England before the Norman Conquest and in later medieval writing. Tolkien’s expertise in Old English deeply influenced his scholarship and his creative work, including names, heroic themes, and invented histories.
He later held major academic posts at the University of Leeds and the University of Oxford. Tolkien is widely known as a novelist, but his professional career was that of a philologist and literary scholar. His study of early Germanic languages helped give Middle-earth its layered linguistic character.