About Hobbits

Translations of the Hobbit

It seems that nobody exactly knows in how many languages The Hobbit has been translated. Douglas A. Anderson (The Annotated Hobbit, 1988) gives us 25 translations. In the revised version of the book (2002) the number of translations has grown to 32.

Mary http://www.neko.com/HobbitIndex.php mentions more than fifty translations. The list below gives us 46 translations (and the years of first prints).

On the list below, I miss some translations: Brazilian (Portugese), 1995, Braille (different languages), Chinese modern 2001?, Georgian 2002?, Latin (only one page) ….. , Ny Norsk (New Norwegian) 2008, a second Persian translation, Silezian (only a fragment), Taiwanese (although it is an English pirate version) and a disappeared (?) Vietnamese translation. And what about Spanish versions, printed in Argentina and Cuba? Or: what to do with English versions printed in the USA or Canada?

If anyone knows more translations, please contact me.

What we know for sure is, that the Swedish translation (1947) was the first, followed bij the Gerrman (1957) and the Dutch (1960). Only some two months later there was a Polish translation. As far as I know, the Arabic translation (2008) and Ny Norsk (2008) are the latest translations so far. Someone is working on an Irish translation, but that takes more time than expected. There also is an Aragonese translation in progress?
And, after some years of rumour, in 2009 the Frisian version was published. Now it’s time for the Irish version to be published….

Language 1st Edition Title Year of 1st Edition
Albanian Bilbo Hobiti 2005
Arabic الهوبيت، أو ذهابًا وعودة 2008
Armenian Hobit: Kam Gnaln ou Galû 1984
Belarusian Хобiт, або Вандроўка туды i назад 2002
Breton An Hobbit, pe eno ha distro 2001
Bulgarian Билбо Бегинс или Дотам и Обратно 1975
Catalan El Hòbbit, o, Viatge d’anada i tornada 1983
Chinese Xiao Airen Lixian Ji 1996
Croatian Hobit 1994
Czech Hobit, aneb, Cesta tam a zase zpátky 1979
Danish Hobbitten, eller, Ud og hjem igen 1969
Dutch De hobbit, of Daarheen en weer terug 1960
Esperanto La Hobito 2000
Estonian Kääbik, ehk, Sinna ja tagasi 1977
Faeroese Hobbin, ella, Út og heim aftur 1990
Finnish Lohikäärmevuori, eli, Erään hoppelin matka sinne ja takaisin 1973
French Bilbo le Hobbit, ou, Histoire d’un aller et retour 1969
Galician O Hobbit 2000
German Kleiner Hobbit und der grosse Zauberer 1957
Greek ΧΟΜΠΙΤ 1978
Hebrew ההוביט בתרגום משה הנעמי וא. אופק 1976
Hungarian A BABÓ 1975
Icelandic Hobbit 1978
Indonesian Hobbit atau Pergi dan Kembali 1977
Italian Lo hobbit, o, La riconquista del tesoro 1973
Japanese Hobbito no Bôken 1965
Korean 호비트 1997
Latvian Hobits, jeb, Turp un alpakaļ 1991
Lithuanian Hobitas, arba, Ten ir atgal: Apyysaka-pasaka 1985
Luxembourgish Den Hobbit 2002
Macedonian Хобитот 2005
Moldavian Хоббитул 1987
Norwegian Hobbiten, eller, Fram og tilbake igjen 1972
Persian هابیت 2002
Polish Hobbit, czyli, Tam i z powrotem 1960
Portuguese O gnomo 1962
Romanian O poveste cu un hobbit 1975
Russian Хоббит, или туда и обратно 1976
Serbian Hobit 1975
Slovak Hobbiti 1973
Slovenian Hobit, ali, Tja in spet nazaj 1986
Spanish El hobito 1964
Swedish Hompen, eller, En resa dit och tillbaksigen 1947
Thai ฮอบบิท 2002
Turkish Hobbit, Oradaydık ve şimdi buradayız 1996
Ukrainian Гобіт, або Туди і звідти 1985

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