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Hobbits are a fictional, diminutive, humanoid race who inhabit the lands of Middle-earth in J. R. R. Tolkien’s fiction. They are also referred to as Halflings. Hobbits first appeared in the novel ''The Hobbit'', whose titular hobbit is the protagonist, Bilbo Baggins. The novel ''The Lord of the Rings'' includes more hobbits as major characters, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took and Meriadoc Brandybuck, as well as several other minor hobbit characters. Hobbits are also briefly mentioned in ''The Silmarillion'' and ''Unfinished Tales''. According to the author in the prologue to ''The Lord of the Rings'', hobbits are "relatives"〔Tolkien: ''The Fellowship of the Ring''. Prologue. "It is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits are relatives of ours: far nearer to us than Elves, or even than Dwarves. () But what exactly our relationship is can no longer be discovered."〕 of the race of Men. Elsewhere Tolkien describes Hobbits as a "variety"〔Tolkien, J. R. R. ''Guide to the Names of the Lord of the Rings'', "The Firstborn"〕 or separate "branch"〔Carpenter: ''The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien'', #131〕 of humans. Within the story, hobbits and other races seem aware of the similarities (hence the colloquial terms "Big People" and "Little People" used in Bree). However, within the story, hobbits considered themselves a separate people.〔Tolkien: ''The Fellowship of the Ring''. Many Meetings. “If you can’t distinguish between a Man and a Hobbit, your judgement is poorer than I imagined. They’re as different as peas and apples.”〕 At the time of the events in ''The Lord of the Rings'', hobbits lived in the Shire and in Bree in the north west of Middle-earth, though by the end, some had moved out to the Tower Hills and to Gondor and Rohan. ==Development== Tolkien believed he had invented the word "hobbit" when he began writing ''The Hobbit'' (it was revealed years after his death that the word predated Tolkien's usage, though with a different meaning). Tolkien's concept of hobbits, in turn, seems to have been inspired by Edward Wyke Smith's 1927 children's book ''The Marvellous Land of Snergs'', and by Sinclair Lewis's 1922 novel ''Babbitt''. The Snergs were, in Tolkien's words, "a race of people only slightly taller than the average table but broad in the shoulders and have the strength of ten men."〔Carpenter: ''J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography'', p. 165.〕 Tolkien wrote to W. H. Auden that ''The Marvellous Land of Snergs'' "was probably an unconscious source-book for the Hobbits"〔 and he told an interviewer that the word ''hobbit'' "might have been associated with Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt" (like hobbits, George Babbitt enjoys the comforts of his home). However, Tolkien claims that he started ''The Hobbit'' suddenly, without premeditation, in the midst of grading a set of student essay exams, writing on a blank piece of paper: "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit".〔Carpenter: ''J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography'', p. 172〕 While ''The Hobbit'' introduced this comfortable race to the world, it is only in writing ''The Lord of the Rings'' that Tolkien developed details of their history and wider society. He set out a fictional etymology for the name in an appendix to Lord of the Rings, to the effect that it was derived from ''holbytla'' (plural ''holbytlan''), a speculative reconstruction of Old English, meaning “hole-builder” (in the books, Old English stands in for words in the language of the fictional Rohirrim).〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Holbytlan: The ancient origin of the word ‘Hobbit’ )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「hobbit」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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