bárbaros

bárbar--os agr. βάρβαρος eigtl. 'blah-blah-er, Blahblahrer'; ‘fremd, nichtgriechisch, unkultiviert, roh’

Onomatopoeic: from the perceived βαρ-βαρ (bar-bar) sounds incomprehensible to Ancient Greeks and spoken by foreigners. As an onomatopoeic construction, βαρ-βαρ is similar to modern English blah blah, but meaning gibberish, gabble; compare also babble from Proto-Indo-European *bʰa-bʰa-. Cognate to Mycenaean Greek 𐀞𐀞𐀫 (pa-pa-ro) and Sanskrit बर्बर (barbara, “barbarian, non-Aryan, stammering, blockhead”).

Possibly related to Proto-Indo-European *balb-, *balbal- (“tongue-tied”). Compare with Latin balbus (“stammering, stuttering”), Russian болтать (boltatʹ, “to chatter, babble”) and балабол(“over-talkative”, chatterbox), Lithuanianbalbė́ti (“to talk, babble”), Sanskrit बल्बला (balbalā, “stammering”), Albanian belbët (“stammering”).

For the semantic development, compare Arabic ⁧عَجَم⁩ (ʕajam, “non-Arab; Persian”), from the root ⁧ع ج م⁩ (ʕ-j-m), referring to people who speak unclearly, or Proto-Slavic *němьcь (“non-Slav, German”), from *němъ (“mute”).

Pronunciation

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• IPA^(key): /bár.ba.ros/ → /ˈβar.βa.ros/ → /ˈvar.va.ros/

Adjective

βᾰ́ρβᾰρος • (bárbaros) m or f (neuter βᾰ́ρβᾰρον); second declension(Attic, Ionic, Koine)

1. non-Greek-speaking, foreign
   1. (in the plural) non-Greek peoples
      1. Medes or Persians [ quotations ▼]
2. (derogatory) barbaric, brutal, rude