I got into an argument with my roommate today over (of all things) the history of the word “barbarian.” Actually this was a continuation of an argument we had months before that never really got anywhere, but he had new ammunition. He maintains that the English word ‘barbarian’ is named for the inhabitants of the Barbary Coast in Northern Africa. His citations are a few Renaissance-era works (Shakespeare, I believe, though I don’t know and don’t want to bring it up again) and a professor of his that confirmed what he had read. In my education of Greek history, I was taught that ‘barbarian’ is derived from the Greek ‘barbaros;’ a name for non-Greek speakers who spoke differently than the Greeks. One of the first instances of the use of this term evidently come from Homer in The Illiad, in Book two, describing the Carians (allies of the Trojans) as ‘barbaro-phoroi’ or ‘strange-speaking.’ This is as Pomeroy et al have it in a textbook entitled Ancient Greece.
Three separate dictionaries (Webster, American Heritage via dictionary.com, and the OED) seem to confirm that the root of the English word ‘barbarian’ is from the Greek, as does a passage in my copy of the Bible (St. Joe’s edition) in Romans 1:14. None make a reference to the word being derived from the Barbary Coast, though natives were in fact called Barbarians. It seems to me that the name “Barbary” too was derived from the Greek.
I suppose my roommate’s point is that the first instances of the English word barbarian are found in his Shakespeare or wherever, who used the word in reference to the real Barbarians, not knowing the orignal Greek necessarily. The word ‘barbarian’ wasn’t found exactly in the ancient Greek, though I maitain it’s just a translation.
Anyway, what’s the straight dope? You see, this is what happens when smart people (or people that pretend they’re smart, anyway) live together.
Back in the day, there was this dame named “Barbara”, see, who was really, really, good with a two-edged axe. When she got mad, which happened at the quarter moon, she was apt to go pillaging…
Are you asking about the WORD “barbarian” or the CONCEPT of barbarians?
The word comes from the Latin “barbarus,” which means “bearded.” The Romans considered themselves the most civilized race on earth, and they shaved their beards. Less civilized tribes outside Rome’s borders (the Germans, for instance) wore beards. So, to the Romans, “barbari” (“bearded ones”) became shorthand for “inferior, uncivilized races.”
The word “barber” comes from the same root (a barber, after all, is a guy who cuts your beard).
Now, as for the concept… well, MANY races have regarded themselves as the greatest, most advcanced, most cultured, most civilized race on earth, and have regarded outsiders with disdain. Most of those races did not use the WORD barbarian (in some of ths cultures, and most did not look with disfavor on beards (in some of those societies, men were EXPECTED to wear beards), but the Chinese, the Greeks, the Egyptians, and countless other peoples had their own pet terms for foreigners from supposely lesser or more primitive peoples.
I was going to read you an easy answer out of my OED(Compact Edition, 1971), but it’s more complicated than I thought. It appears that the English words barbarous, barbaric, and barbarism have behaved fairly sensibly and retained the Greek sense of foreign-ness. Barbarian and Barbary, however, get pretty wild.
Note the first citations given for each of these words in English:
To make a long story short, here are some snippets from the entry on Barbary:
“I. Barbarous nationality, state or speech”
All the uses given under this heading are shown as obsolete.
“II. as proper name.
4. The Saracen countries along the north coast of Africa. (The only surviving sense.)”
Until I get a chance to check Astorian’s claim, I’m sticking with the notion that the root here is the Greet * barbaros*(where’s the dang symbol font?), which OED compares with the Latin balbus, “stammering”.
I though the word originated in an Ancient Greek term for jibberish, since foreign speech sounded like aso much bar-bar-bar to them. So from barbaros (varvaros?) we get barbarian, Berber etc.
I think that the ancients said it in a relatively non-pejorative way for all the people to their north and south who lived in tribal type units, it was later that the word acquired the current meaning.
One of those cases when the first ENGLISH use of it might not matter-- greek-latin language having been widely used with meaning for quite a while beforehand. What I have heard in classics-oriented classes is closest to what Cuate and peregrine note, that "bar-bar’ comes from something along the lines of the ‘babblers’ up north, ala “the blah-blah-bians.”
Just to add to that last post, here’s a cite specifically debunking the “barbarians are people who have beards” theory: http://www.takeourword.com/Issue010.html