The Probert Encyclopaedia of General Information

BARBARIAN

Barbarian (from the Greek, barbaros), was a name given by the Greeks, and afterwards by the Romans, to every one who spoke an unintelligible language; and hence coming to connote the idea of rude, illiterate, uncivilized. This word, therefore, did not always convey the idea of something odious or savage; thus Plautus calls Naevius a barbarous poet, because he had not written in Greek; and Cicero terms illiterate persons without taste 'barbarians.'
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