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Beards of Belonging
- mbrock 11y ago> The Latin word for beard, barba, -ae, provides the root for the Latin and English equivalent of ‘barbarian’. From what I can tell, that's not the generally accepted etymology. Wikipedia's "Barbarian" page says: > Eventually the term found a hidden meaning by Christian Romans through the folk etymology of Cassiodorus. He stated the word barbarian was "made up of barba (beard) and rus (flat land); for barbarians did not live in cities, making their abodes in the fields like wild animals". Wikipedia gives this as the primary etymology and it's the one I've heard most often: > The Ancient Greek word βάρβαρος (barbaros), "barbarian", was an antonym for πολίτης (politēs), "citizen" (from πόλις - polis, "city-state"). The sound of barbaros onomatopoetically evokes the image of babbling (a person speaking a non-Greek language).