> why would it have to achieve it "spontaneously"? You start with the onomatopoeia, and ... Exactly, you don't spontaneously start with suffixes added to a sou

> why would it have to achieve it "spontaneously"? You start with the onomatopoeia, and ... Exactly, you don't spontaneously start with suffixes added to a sound imitation. In other words, evidence for the first step is missing. And I claim it doesn't exist, because the derivation was perhaps different. > standard set of suffixes -os, as in barbaros, supposedly was nominalizing suffixed to verbs. Is a verb in that sense attested? "brabbeln" (to murmur) as I mentioned? I could also imagine "bare"-naked to describe uncivilized folk. Or consider "bear", because carrying, drawing is what beasts of bur-den frequently do. Indeed, wiktionary has Lithuanian "bernas" (“young, unmarried man; child; boy; servant”) from ... from PIE bʰer-no-s (carrier). I don't know the root to persian "barde" (slave), I suppose this is it. The regular development of PIE bh* is to Greek ph, but to b in avestan (percursor to persian), so I'd assume a borrowing. There is more argument in favour, but also many inconsitencies and arguments against it. Just speculation. > irrelevant as in that the origin of the word wasn't relevant to what I was discussing I'm sorry that I had to go off on a tangent but propositions such as this are always difficult to explain because of the inherent uncertainty. And because "No, it means slave" would need an explanation. Certainly though, slavery was very topical. Dumbness is a mild slur in comparison. Another topical theory of mine is that "Aryan", in one of many semantic levels, if meaning golden, referred to skin color. The meaning noble then would be in contrast to other kin.