Gollum questions.

[Mithalwen]

i did say that halfling had been accurate when coined. The point i was trying to make as i rambled was indeed that it would have seemed a bit cheeky for a five foot six Bree man to call a nearly four foot hobbit Halfling.

Terms which were originally merely descriptive becoming perjorative are clearly not a modern phenomenon.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I think that the detail of "half" is not particularly important. The Big Folk would have continued using halfling from habit and because it really does not matter if it is halfling or threequarterling, as long as it gets the point across. The hobbits would continue to be offended because halfling and threequarterling alike are diminutive in their nature, regardless of how accurate. No people wants to be named relative to another, since to each people they are the norm.

True. I very much agree.

In Breeland the names “Big Folk” and “Little Folk” are both accepted for different peoples, perhaps because in Breeland both of the peoples are considered to be equally Bree folk. In Breeland the name “Hobbit” is also used.

Those who were the ancestors of those called Hobbits must have come to a decision over whether their people should be reckoned as Men with some differences from normal Men in terms of size, normal length of life, and hair on their feet, or they should be reckoned as a separate people entirely, as different from Men as Elves and Dwarves. This decision was probably not taken at a single place and time, but emerged gradually. We see the results in the title gentlehobbit and when Merry and Pippin explain what kind of being they are to Treebeard, never thinking to explain that they are a special kind of Men and that Treebeard need not change his Old Lists.

Tolkien himself says in Letters, in a footnote to Letter 131 to Milton Waldman:

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.

On names of peoples, Tolkien writes in Unfinished Tales, page 496: “Since Ghân-buri-Ghân was attempting to use the Common Speech he callled his people ‘Wild Men’ (not without irony); but this was not of course their own name for themselves.”

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

i did say that halfling had been accurate when coined. The point i was trying to make as i rambled was indeed that it would have seemed a bit cheeky for a five foot six Bree man to call a nearly four foot hobbit Halfling.

True. Except we do not know where and when the term halfling was coined. The term was almost true when in respect to the Númenóreans, but it seems to me very dubious that this was a term coined by Númenóreans who are never mentioned, either before or after the sinking of Númenór as ever present in the area of the upper Vales of Anduin, where the folk later known as Hobbits were first recorded as dwelling.

Presumably the earliest records of these people would be written in Sindarin and would use the name perian. But perian might well be a translation of the name used by their Mannish neighbours, who may have spoken Westron or may have spoken some other Mannish tongue.

But you are quite right that whether coined by an Elf or Man, the term halfling does seem insulting.

[Inziladun]

I haven't got the books with me, but when Pippin and Merry are speaking with Treebeard about being added to his song of the creatures of Middle-earth, one of them suggests "half grown hobbits, the hole dwellers".

And later, Pippin seems to be rather unconcerned with his given title "Prince of the Halflings" in Minas Tirith, seeing it as no insult. Perhaps the feelings of Hobbits about the term "halfling" are really more connected to the apparent intent of the speaker.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I haven't got the books with me, but when Pippin and Merry are speaking with Treebeard about being added to his song of the creatures of Middle-earth, one of them suggests "half grown hobbits, the hole dwellers".

Good point! So Pippin is not really bothered by being called “half”-size, presumably recognizing it is only an approximation. Still, Tolkien does say in Unfinished Tales that Hobbits disliked the name Halfling. Possibly it was because the precise term Halfling had been used as an insult. Using “half
grown” in in a formal way would remove much of the vindictiveness, something like referring to someone as a “religious fundamentalist” as opposed to a “fundy”.

And later, Pippin seems to be rather unconcerned with his given title "Prince of the Halflings" in Minas Tirith, seeing it as no insult. Perhaps the feelings of Hobbits about the term "halfling" are really more connected to the apparent intent of the speaker.

Yes. Yet when King Théoden first meets the Hobbits and recognizes them as “Halflings”, Pippin corrects him, saying, “Hobbits, if you please, lord. Or perhaps Pippin is correcting the term “Holbytlan” that Théoden also uses.

I have no difficulty in believing Tolkien when he says that Hobbits disliked the name Halfling but also am not surprised to see them accept the name when there is obviously no offence intended. Indeed Pippin introduces himself to he boy Bergil as “a halfling, hard, bold, and wicked!” When in Gondor speak as a Gondorian, when one can.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by jallanite

Yet when King Théoden first meets the Hobbits and recognizes them as “Halflings”, Pippin corrects him, saying, “Hobbits, if you please, lord. Or perhaps Pippin is correcting the term “Holbytlan” that Théoden also uses.

That seems to me to have been indeed just a minor correction to Théoden's "Holbytlan". At any rate, Pippin shows no sign of being affronted.

[Inziladun]

As an aside, I have to wonder how hobbits in general were called "halflings" enough to have an aversion to the name. The other races they were normally in contact with, the Men of Bree and the Dúnedain (if Aragorn is typical) use "hobbit". Who else had dealings with them. Dwarves? Who were they to call someone "halfling"?

[Belegorn]

Hobbits were Halflings to the Dwarves because of their girth.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

As an aside, I have to wonder how hobbits in general were called "halflings" enough to have an aversion to the name. The other races they were normally in contact with, the Men of Bree and the Dúnedain (if Aragorn is typical) use "hobbit". Who else had dealings with them. Dwarves? Who were they to call someone "halfling"?

Those whose descendants were to be called hobbits are said to be “first mentioned in the records” in Appendix B in the year 1050 of the Third Age. Their language at the end of the Third Age still contains many words not from the Common Speech related to the speech of the Rohirrim, probably dating to an earlier period when those whose descendants were later to be called hobbits lived in the upper vales of Anduin, neighbours to the ancestors of the Rohirrim. One of these words was hobbit, related to Rohirric holbytla ‘hole-builder’ which referred to the same people who now called themselves hobbbits.

The largest group of Hobbits at the end of the Third Age was in the Shire, Buckland, and Bree-land, but some lived elsewhere in smaller communities. Tolkien notes in the chapter “At the Sign of the Prancing Pony”: “There were probably more Outsiders scattered about in the West of the World in those days than the people of the Shire imagined.”

In The Peoples of Middle-earth, page 311, Tolkien notes that while it was quite likely true that at the end of the Third Age Bree-land was the only place where Men and Hobbits lived together, that in earlier times those who were later called Hobbits “liked to live with or near to Big Folk of friendly kind, who with their greater strength protected them from many dangers and other hostile Men, and received in exchange many services.”

In short, in the past, the ancestors of those called Hobbits at the end of the Third Age had many relations with many Men, and the Common Speech name for these people was banakil ‘halfling’. Presumably other Mannish tongues which spoke of them rendered the name by a translation of the same meaning.

Many different sorts of Men other than Bree-men and Rangers had before the last days of the Third Age had contact with Hobbits. The normal Common Speech name for them was banakil ‘halfling’ in Gondor and elsewhere and as such they were known in such traditions as were preserved about them. Only in the Shire, Buckland, and Bree-land was the name Hobbit found.