J.R.R. Tolkien’s academic field at Oxford was philology. In his era, philology combined the historical study of languages with the close reading of older texts, tracing how words, sounds, and grammatical forms changed over time.
Tolkien studied classics and then English at Oxford, with particular attention to Old and Middle English, Old Norse, Welsh, Finnish, and related traditions. His professional work included teaching and researching English language and literature. He held the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford from 1925 to 1945, then the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature from 1945 to 1959.
Philology helped shape his fiction. Tolkien often developed invented languages by giving them consistent sound systems, grammar, and historical relationships. He then imagined the peoples and stories that might naturally use those languages.
Philology is not simply the study of dictionaries. Lexicography focuses on compiling dictionaries, while archaeology studies physical remains. Tolkien’s work joined linguistic history with literary interpretation.