Which language did J.R.R. Tolkien study at Oxford and teach as a professor?

J.R.R. Tolkien studied and taught Anglo-Saxon at Oxford.

In Tolkien’s academic career, Anglo-Saxon is the traditional name for Old English, the language used in England before the Norman Conquest and in later medieval writing. Tolkien studied classics and English at Oxford, specializing in the history and structure of languages and texts. He became a lecturer and then professor in fields connected with English language and literature.

He held the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford from 1925 to 1945. He then became Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, a post he held until his retirement in 1959. His scholarship on Old English, Middle English, and medieval literature strongly influenced his creative writing.

Tolkien also knew and studied languages including Welsh, Finnish, Latin, Greek, and Old Norse. Those interests helped inspire his invented languages, but the Oxford professorship specifically associated with Anglo-Saxon was the Rawlinson and Bosworth chair.