Barbarians Were People Who Didn’t Speak Greek
MessageToEagle.com – Who were the Barbarians? The term “Barbarians” is today greatly misused. In modern times we often say Barbarians are uncivilized people or evil people.
However, the true meaning of the word has been forgotten.
The word originated in ancient Greece, and it initially merely referred to people who did not speak Greek.
According to Konstantinos Vlassopoulos, a professor of Greek history at the University of Nottingham, the earliest attestation of the word barbarian in Greek literature is in Homer’s descriptions of the Carians as ‘barbarophonoi’.
Vlassopoulos notes that the ancient Greeks themselves used this word in a confusing and contradictory fashion. One problem they had is that there was no agreement among the ancient Greeks as to who spoke Greek and who didn’t, at least up until around the time of Alexander the Great.
There “existed a variety of local and regional dialects, which were mutually comprehensible to a larger or smaller degree,” writes Vlassopoulos in his book Greeks and the Barbarians.
So the original meaning of the word “barbarian” did not refer to acts of evil but rather to those who were not Greek or did not speak Greek. Also who didn’t speak Greek was a matter of debate among the ancient Greeks themselves.
MessageToEagle.com
Expand for referencesSource:
Related Posts
-
Arrowhead Made Of Meteoritic Iron From The Late Bronze Age Settlement Of Mörigen, Switzerland – Examined
No Comments | Aug 2, 2023
-
Will Ancient DNA Unravel History Of The Scythians From Central Asian Steppe?
No Comments | Mar 30, 2021
-
Tages: Etruscan Prophet Who Revealed Sacred Knowledge Before He Vanished
No Comments | Mar 1, 2016
-
The Prophecy Of The Rainbow Warriors And Future Of Planet Earth
No Comments | Oct 11, 2014
-
Suomenlinna Fortress: Impressive ‘Castle Of Finland’ Has Rich History
No Comments | Feb 13, 2016
-
Canaanite Temple Dated To 12th Century BC Unearthed At Lachish, Israel
No Comments | Feb 19, 2020
-
Stele Of Tell al-Rimah And Deeds Of Assyrian King Adad-nirari Against Rebellious Kings
No Comments | Feb 23, 2022
-
Lost Ancient Golden City Of Vineta – The Atlantis Of The North
No Comments | Jul 29, 2023
-
Gigantic Karnak Temple Complex: Advanced Ancient Technology In Egypt
No Comments | Apr 6, 2017
-
Grave Of Amazon Warrior Who Lived In The Kingdom Of Urartu Discovered In Armenia
No Comments | Nov 29, 2019