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Comment by WastingMyTime89 | Hacker News Reader

I found this line The Greeks were also “obsessed with being Greek” and considered anyone who did not speak the language to be a “barbarian,” as Katherine Reinberger, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Georgia of the article extremely funny. That’s a weird way to say that yes βάρβαρος does indeed mean someone who does not speak Greek, a foreigner in Ancient Greek.

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I would say that that statement of Reinberger is a "sensualized" one. (Also saying "the Greeks think/thought Y" is like saying "the whole U.S. over 200 years was thinking Y" times 30+.)

To add to your comment: Anyone who didn't speak Greek was by definition a barbarian because that is what it meant. That is one was βαρβαρίζει (~varvarizi) (verb), as that is what other neighbouring languages sounded (and sound) in our ears: a constant βαρ βαρ (var var) sound.

The Romans added Latin to the non-sounding var var /barbarian languages, when they came in contact with us. Mostly out of prestige/common trade/allying. So the term was later enforced to mean anyone that doesn't speak Greek or Latin is a barbarian/"barbarizes."

And by the time of Pax Romana to mean inferior, as it did not have the knowledge and resources to learn the lingua franca of the times. In Hellenistic times, prior, the lingua franca was Greek, but I am not sure at the moment of the average Joe's perception on the matter. Generally a lot of trading cities where open to new ideas so I doubt that it was seen as inferiority more like a peculiarity or annoyance -- if you were trying to trade.

There is the notorious "to an unknown God" inscription/offering Athenians had [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unknown_God -- if you excuse my laziness with wikipedia]. That is not the behaviour of someone obsessed with themselves.

I heard that barbarian as a word itself is mocking non Greek language. Like speech in other languages is just bar bar bar bar

I mostly hear this word in the context of the Romans, but I thought that it was a term for facial hair- implying those external to the "civilized" empire had a tendency for ragged and long facial hair.

Hence the term 'barber' for a person that cuts said facial hair.

no, that’s a false friend etymology.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/barber

“barbarian” is onomatopoeic for “people who talk like bar bar bar bar and aren’t greek”. the (themselves barbarian) romans adopted the term.

One notable “barbarian” group would be the Berbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berbers whose name might actually be derived from the Greek word for barbarian.

It does literally mean that but it contemporaneously had a connotation of "not civilized" just as it does today. I don't think there's a word in English that carries this same double-meaning. For example, "un-American" certainly has the right meaning for the second connotation but it's never used in the purely literal sense. Conversely "foreigner" does have that literal first sense and can be used with a pejorative connotation, but still only one meaning; the foreignness is inherently pejorative, it's not a synecdoche.

How about "third world"?

A good suggestion!

The usage of the word today and back then are not necessarily the same.

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