Re: [tied] greek ethymology of barbar?

The Greeks did not apply the word <barbaros> to foreign shepherds (they kept flocks of sheep themselves, so the occupation was by no means exotic from their point of view) but to non-Greek speakers, foreign languages or names, bird calls and the like. The word seems to derive from reduplicated *bar-bar- meaning 'unintelligible speech, noise, gibberish' (another theoretically possible though less likely underlier would be Proto-Greek *gWar-gWar-; cf. Slavic *gol-gol-o-

> OCS glagolU 'word', hence the name of the Glagolitic script).

Typologically, such expressive reduplications (or quasi-reduplications) are very common indeed: cf. English <blah-blah>, <babble>, <blabber>, <gaggle>, Latin <balbus> 'stammerer', Skt. <balbala:-> 'stammer', <barbara-> 'stammerer, foreigner, fool').

I have no idea where the shepherds' <bâr> comes from. One of the Slavic words for 'ram, lamb' is <baran> (*baranU), etymologically obscure -- hence Hungarian bárány 'lamb' from Slovak -- but the word doesn't occur in South Slavic, as far as I know. It may or may not be connected with shepherds' cries (<bas'-bas'> is the conventional Polish way of addressing a lamb) or even with sounds produced by the baa-lambs themselves. Such items often have no proper etymology.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: altamix

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, May 26, 2002 11:05 AM

Subject: [tied] greek ethymology of barbar?

hi together, ist there a well , precisely ethymology of the greek word "barbaros" ?I should see the sufix "os" is typicaly a greek sufix but nothing more. I just ask it because i should like to see if there is any connection with the neighbours people of the greek in balcans, the shepperds, which use their words for driving the sheeps with the words "ba^r" or "bi^r". It seems to be a logical explanation for the people who use "bi^r" or "ba^r" due the fact they are allways driving thier sheeps in the vicinity of the greek,so very easy to call them them the "ba^r" or "bi^r"-people. The question is on the second "bar" is this just a normal repeting of the "ba^r" or does it mean something els? Any reply would be kindly appreciated. best regards a. moeller

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