Friday, January 20, 2017
Is Barbaros a Barbarian Word?
Edith Hall, Inventing the Barbarian (1989; rpt. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), p. 4:
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The Greek term barbaros, by the fifth century used both as a noun and an adjective, was ironically oriental in origin, and formed by reduplicative onomatopoeia. Originally it was simply an adjective representing the sound of incomprehensible speech.5But cf. Pierre Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, Vol. I (Paris: Éditions Klincksieck, 1968), p. 165:
5 See Weidner 1913; Specht 1939, p. 11; Limet 1972, p. 124. There are similar words in several early oriental languages, especially the Babylonian-Sumerian barbaru, 'foreigner'. Pokorny 1959, pp. 91-2, connects the term with numerous Indo-European words designating the meaningless or inarticulate, including the Latin balbutio, and the English baby.
On a évoqué sumérien bar-bar «étranger», sém. babyl. barbaru, «étranger»: Weidner, Gl. 4, 1913, 303 sq., Specht, KZ 66, 1939, 11; hypothèse périmée, car. akkad. barbaru signifie toujours «loup» et rien d'autre.I'm unqualified to judge.
