We Will All Become Barbarians
I presume that we would not want to be overcome by barbarians -- from without, or from within. I learned the etymology of "barbarian" when I was just a boy, when I was interested in the meaning of my family's names, when I searched the origin of my aunt Barbara's name. barbarian (adj.) mid-14c., from Medieval Latin barbarinus (source of Old French barbarin "Berber, pagan, Saracen, barbarian"), from Latin barbaria "foreign country," from Greek barbaros "foreign, strange, ignorant," from PIE root *barbar- echoic of unintelligible speech of foreigners (compare Sanskrit barbara- "stammering," also "non-Aryan," Latin balbus "stammering," Czech blblati "to stammer"). Greek barbaroi (n.) meant "all that are not Greek," but especially the Medes and Persians. Originally not entirely pejorative, its sense darkened after the Persian wars. The Romans (technically themselves...