AboutTed Nesbitt Expertise I have an interest in the meanings of words and phrases, as well as how and when they became part of the English language. I enjoy
researching idioms, colloquialisms, dialects, and obscurities of
all kinds. I prefer short questions on a particular subject, and
I will not accept lengthy research projects or term papers. NOTE: ALLEXPERTS CLAIMS THAT I TRANSLATE FROM ENGLISH TO LATIN AND FROM LATIN TO ENGLISH. I DO NOT. ALLEXPERTS REFUSES TO DELETE THE LATIN-TO-ENGLISH SERVICE -- ONE THAT I DO NOT PROVIDE.
TRUST ME ON THIS: ALLEXPERTS IS WRONG. I DO NOT TRANSLATE FROM ENGLISH TO LANGUAGE. LOOK FOR A LANGUAGE EXPERT INSTEAD. ETYMOLOGY AND TRANSLATING SERVICES ARE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT. ALLEXPERTS SHOULD KNOW THAT. ALLEXPERTS DOES NOT KNOW THAT. I HAVE TRIED FOR MANY YEARS TO GET THEM TO CHANGE. THEY WILL NOT. SORRY, BUT I DO NOT TRANSLATE FROM ENGLISH TO LATIN.
Experience I am the bibliographic instruction and reference librarian at a public
college. My master's thesis concerns William Faulkner's tragic novels. I formerly taught advanced placement English at two schools in the Philadelphia area.
I have been a member of the grammar and writing section of Allexperts
for more than a year.
Education/Credentials Masters degrees in English, philosophy, and library science.
Question I certainly do appreciate any help you may be able to give me. So I will say Thank You in advance. I'm sure this question will be of interest to you. How did the barbarians get their name. I had heard somewhere the Romans gave it to them.. Please help me solve this problem.
Answer Joan:
You are "partially" correct. The name originated with the Romans, in reference to the people of Barbary. The connotation of the word to mean a person of crude ["barbaric"] behavior came later. Of course, the term "barbarian" came to mean "any person NOT of the Greek or Roman civilizations" -- in other words, "not civilized."
The word first appeared in WRITTEN English in the year 1549. I am pasting in below the entire reference from "The Oxford English Dictionary, [OED]" the authoritative [usually] multi-volume work that traces the entry of words into the English language. The word was probably used in SPOKEN English years before 1549.
You'll find a lot of reading from the OED pasted below. Note especially this entry: 1578 L. MASCALL -- and the examples that follow it.
Ted Nesbitt
A. noun.
1. etymologically, A foreigner, one whose language and customs differ from the speaker's.
1549 Compl. Scot. xiii. 106 Euere nation reputis vthers nations to be barbariens, quhen there tua natours and complexions ar contrar til vtheris [i.e. each other]. 1611 BIBLE 1 Cor. xiv. 11, I shall be vnto him that speaketh, a Barbarian, and he that speaketh shal be a Barbarian vnto me. 1827 HARE Guesses (1859) 325 A barbarian is a person who does not talk as we talk, or dress as we dress, or eat as we eat; in short, who is so audacious as not to follow our practice in all the trivialities of manners. 1862 Macm. Mag. Nov. 58 Ovid..laments that in his exile at Tomi he, the polished citizen, is a barbarian to all his neighbours.
2. Hist. a. One not a Greek. b. One living outside the pale of the Roman empire and its civilization, applied especially to the northern nations that overthrew them. c. One outside the pale of Christian civilization. d. With the Italians of the Renascence: One of a nation outside of Italy.
1604 SHAKES. Oth. I. iii. 363 A fraile vow, betwixt an erring Barbarian [cf. sense 5] and a super-subtle Venetian. 1607 Cor. III. i. 238, I would they were Barbarians..not Romans. 1628 HOBBES Thucyd. 9 The Athenians..expecting the coming of the Barbarian. 1660 STANLEY Hist. Philos. (1701) 307/2 Of Men some are Grecians, some Barbarians. 1846 ARNOLD Hist. Rome II. xi. 364 The inhabitants of the left or eastern bank of the Rhone were..no longer to be considered barbarians, but were become Romans both in their customs and in their language. 1863 MAYOR in Ascham's Scholem. 242 Christoph. Longueil of Malines, the one ‘barbarian’ to whom the Italians allowed the title of ‘Ciceronian.’
3. A rude, wild, uncivilized person.
1613 R. C. Table Alph., Barbarian, a rude person. 1697 DRYDEN Virg. Georg. III. 588 Skins of Beasts, the rude Barbarians wear. 1730 THOMSON Autumn 57 The sad barbarian, roving, mixed With beasts of prey. 1861 STANLEY East. Ch. xii. (1869) 381 The strange barbarian [Peter the Great] sought to evade the eagerness of our national curiosity. 1876 J. H. NEWMAN Hist. Sk. I. I. i. 12 Nature herself fights, and conquers for the barbarian.
b. Sometimes distinguished from savage (perh. with a glance at 2).
1835 ARNOLD Life & Corr. (1844) I. vii. 408, I believe with you that savages could never civilize themselves, but barbarians I think might. 1851 D. WILSON Preh. Ann. II. III. viii. 487 Still a barbarian, but had ceased to be a savage.
c. Applied by the Chinese contemptuously to foreigners.
1858 in Merc. Mar. Mag. V. 302 The character ‘I’ (‘barbarian’) not to be applied to the British Government, or to British subjects, in any Chinese official document.
4. An uncultured person, or one who has no sympathy with literary culture.
1762 HUME Hist. Eng. (1806) IV. lxii. 664 Cromwell, though himself a barbarian, was not insensible to literary merit. 1863 tr. Let. Erasmus in Ascham Scholem. 245 At Oxford..when a young scholar..lectured in Greek with much success, a barbarian began in an address to the people to rave against Greek learning. 1873 M. ARNOLD Lit. & Dogma 1, I have myself called our aristocratic class Barbarians which is the contrary of Hellenes..because..for reading and thinking they have in general no great turn.
5. A native of Barbary. [See BARBARY.] Obs.
1578 L. MASCALL Plant. & Graff. Ep., The Greeks for Greeke, the Barbarians for Barbarie, the Italian for Italie. 1583 PLAT New Exper. (1594) 22 The Barbarians doe make a bright and orient crimosin colour therewith uppon leather. 1709 Lond. Gaz. No. 4571/2 The Governor of Otranto marched..against the Barbarians.
b. A Barbary horse. Obs.
1580 BLUNDEVILLE Horsemanship i. (1609) 4 Those horses which we commonly call Barbarians, do come out of the king of Tunis land.
B. adj.
1. Applied by nations, generally depreciatively, to foreigners; thus at various times and with various speakers or writers: non-Hellenic, non-Roman (most usual), non-Christian.
1549 Compl. Scot. (1801) 259 Mair lyik til barbarien pepil, nor..to cristyn pepil. 1606 SHAKES. Tr. & Cr. II. i. 51 Bought and solde..like a Barbarian slaue. 1715 POPE Mor. Ess. v. 13 Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal conspire. 1817 COLEBROOKE Algebra Introd. 82 Several other terms of the art..are not Sanscrit, but, apparently, barbarian. 1847 HALLAM Hist. Lit. I. i. §1. 2 Establishment of the barbarian nations on the ruins of the Roman empire. 1862 Macm. Mag. Nov. 58 The announcement to one of the comedies of Plautus taken from the Greek, that ‘Philemo wrote what Plautus has adapted to the barbarian tongue’i.e. Latin.
2. Uncivilized, rude, savage, barbarous.
1591 SPENSER Ruins Rome 416 Till that Barbarian hands it quite did spill. 1700 DRYDEN Cymon & Iph. 125 His broad barbarian sound. 1782 PAINE Let. Abbé Raynel (1791) 45 This was not the condition of the barbarian world. Then the wants of men were few. 1859 DARWIN Orig. Spec. i. (1873) 13 Geologists believe that barbarian man existed at an enormously remote period.
3. Of or belonging to Barbary. Obs.
1577 HARRISON England II. vii. (1877) 168 The Morisco gowns, the Barbarian sleves. 1605 Play Stucley in Sch. Shaks. (1878) 254 We mount her back..As we do use to serve Barbarian horse. 1699 in Misc. Cur. (1708) III. 381 The Mauritanian or Barbarian Moor.
