Curiosity on J.R.R. Tolkien and Philology

In class last week, we read about the life of J.R.R. Tolkien and the one thing that struck my curiosity the most and fascinated me greatly was that he was a Philologist. The whole concept behind philology has intrigued me as I read Tolkien's bibliography and while doing research for out multimedia group project. Philology is the study of literary texts as well as written oral records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form and the determination of their meaning. It is the study of literature and of the disciplines relevant to literature or to language as used in literature. Philology is a subfield of linguistics. Philology is the study of historical growth and adaptation of languages, especially in written literature. It is sometimes called historical linguistics. It seems like an awesome thing to uncover the mystery of ancient languages, especially if one wants to write fantasy. I have always semi-invented languages and starting out when I was a toddler. It is playing with words, kind of like what I do when I write poetry or songs. I have always wanted to write a series of fantasy novels and make my own world, and new languages would be an important part of creating new cultures in fantasy settings. After reading about what philology is, I may well be very inclined to change my major once again and experience the life of a philologist.