Re: Etymology of "barbarian"


mb wrote:
Mike Lyle wrote:
mb wrote:
Robert Bannister wrote:
..
I believe it originally came from Greek, and the Greeks may well have
said "varvar" rather than "baabaa", so I think the poor sheep have been
slandered. I won't mention "black sheep" in case I upset Ray Wise.

Obviously it did, and to Greeks of today the word is varvarous. Back
then, though, that "b" definitely was a stop but the sheep have been
slandered anyway. Greek has never been non-rhotic; no Greek sheep was
ever caught sounding "barr-barr" [...]

Ancient Greek sheep spelt their remarks "beta eta" (what on earth is
that in Kirshenbaum?).

It would take a particularly cocksure person to put reconstructed,
hypothetical sounds in any phonetic notation.

What kind of person would it take to assume that sheep have
significantly changed their accents during the past couple of thousand
years?

--
Mike.

.