> Is there a PIE root for greek
"barbar"? ( i cut the suffix here)
The word is obviously onomatopoeic (like
blah-blah), so while it might be related to Skt. <barbara-> 'stammerer,
fool, pl. barbarians, foreigners', the latter might just as easily be an
independently coined expressive word, *bar-bar- or *bal-bal- (cf. Lat. balbus
'stammerer'). I listed more examples of such "bar-bar" and "gol-gol" words in
various languages in an earlier posting.
Piotr