[Piotr]
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
[Moeller] I perfectly agree with your point
of view. I just suppose that in this keeping flocks of sheep, they meet people
persons who spoked difrent languages. We are too far away for beeing able to say
exactly "when" and under which circumstances this word became usual in
greek(Because later it became a properly adjective meaning a foreign one). I
made the connection just because I heard the valachians sheeperds sayng to thier
sheeps "b^ar b^ar you sheep," and that sounded very strange to me.Or we know the
thracians were the neighbours of the greek. Maybe it is a link or maybe not. It
can be rejected it can be adopted or it can became a subject of
searcing..
Piotr