How were hobbits crreated?

[Bruce MacCulloch]

Tolkien actually does answer this question very specifically. I have quoted a few passages illustrating that the Professor held hobbits to be Men.


From The Letters of JRR Tolkien, Footnote to Letter 131:

The Hobbits are, of course, really meant to be a branch of the specifically human race (not Elves or Dwarves) - hence the two kinds can dwell together (as at Bree), and are called just the Big Folk and Little Folk. ...

From Letter 319:

... my 'hobbits' were ... a diminutive branch of the human race. ...

The next quotes are all from The History of Middle Earth, Volume 12, The Peoples of Middle Earth, Part X, 'Of Dwarves and Men':

Thus there grew up in those regions the economy, later characteristic of the dealings of Dwarves and Men (including Hobbits): ...

Hobbits on the other hand were in nearly all respects normal Men, but of very short stature. They were called 'halflings'; but this refers to the normal height of men of Numenorean descent and of the Eldar (especially those of Noldorin descent), which appears to have been about seven of our feet. Their height at the periods concerned was usually more than three feet for men, though very few ever exceeded three foot six; women seldom exceeded three feet. They were not as numerous or variable as ordinary Men, but evidently more numerous and adaptable to different modes of life and habitat than the Drûgs, and when they are first encountered in the histories already showed divergences in colouring, stature, and build, and in their ways of life and preferences for different types of country to dwell in. ...
With Men of normal stature they recognized their close kinship, whereas Dwarves or Elves, whether friendly or hostile, were aliens, with whom their relations were uneasy and clouded by fear.