βάρβαρος

From the study of Colossians 3:11

Range of meaning

Built from the sound 'bar-bar', it meant someone whose language is unintelligible to Greeks, so a non-Greek or foreigner. By the classical period it also suggested 'uncultured' or 'uncivilized' from a Greek point of view, sometimes 'cruel'. The core was linguistic and cultural outsiderness.

Against the English

'Barbarian' in modern English means brutal or savage. YLT's 'foreigner' is closer to the core sense, though it loses the condescension the word carried.

How it drifted

English 'barbarian' came through Latin barbarus, and over the centuries the 'savage, brutal' sense took over from the 'non-Greek-speaker' sense.

Used elsewhere in the period

Homer, Iliad 2.867 speaks of the Carians as barbarophōnoi, 'of barbarous speech'. Strabo (Geography 14.2.28) explains the word as imitating unintelligible speech. In the New Testament, Acts 28:2, 4 calls the kind islanders of Malta barbaroi (BSB 'islanders'), and 1 Corinthians 14:11 uses it of a speaker one cannot understand. Romans 1:14 has 'Greeks and barbarians'.

From the study of Romans 1:14

Range of meaning

Someone who does not speak Greek, so their speech sounds like meaningless 'bar-bar'. From there it came to mean any non-Greek person or culture, often with a Greek sense of being more civilized. Sometimes it meant 'uncouth' or 'crude', but its main sense was linguistic and cultural, not a claim of savagery.

Against the English

KJV and ESV/NASB keep 'barbarians'. BSB and NIV say 'non-Greeks', and WEB and YLT say 'foreigners'. NLT turns the pair into 'the civilized world and the rest of the world'. The modern English word 'barbarian' means brutal, violent or primitive, which is much stronger than Paul's word.

How it drifted

English 'barbarian' passed through Latin barbarus and later European use, where it came to mean savage peoples outside civilization. Over time the violent sense took over and the linguistic sense was lost.

Used elsewhere in the period

Strabo (Geography 14.2.28) explains that the word imitates harsh, unintelligible speech. Paul himself uses it in exactly that linguistic sense in 1 Cor 14:11: if I don't understand a speaker's language, 'I will be a barbaros to the speaker.' In Acts 28:2, 4 the Maltese islanders are called barbaroi (because they did not speak Greek), and they show 'unusual kindness'. Col 3:11 pairs 'barbarian, Scythian'. Romans had to deal with the label too: Pliny the Elder (Natural History 29.14) quotes Cato complaining that Greeks call Romans barbarians.

From the study of Acts 28:2

Range of meaning

Originally an imitation of speech that sounds like 'bar-bar' to a Greek ear. So: (1) someone who does not speak Greek, a foreigner by language (1 Cor 14:11: 'I will be a barbaros to the speaker'); (2) a non-Greek in the paired categories 'Greeks and barbarians', which together meant all humanity (Rom 1:14; compare Col 3:11); (3) in some writers, by extension, 'uncultured' or 'crude.' Sense 3 is a possible overtone, not the core meaning.

Against the English

KJV 'barbarous people' and the English 'barbarians' now mean savage, cruel or uncivilized. YLT's 'foreigners' is closer. 'Natives' (WEB, ESV, NASB) and 'islanders' (BSB, NIV) avoid the insult. 'Natives' can still suggest an indigenous, pre-modern people as seen by colonizers, which is not the point either.

How it drifted

In Latin and later European usage 'barbarian' moved from 'non-Greek/non-Roman' to 'uncivilized, brutal.' Early modern English inherited that moral sense. 'Barbarous' in 1611 already leaned that way, and today it means only that.

Used elsewhere in the period

Herodotus and Thucydides use barbaroi for Persians and other non-Greeks, without necessarily insulting them. Philo and Josephus use the Greek–barbarian division. Strabo classifies peoples by whether they speak Greek. Diodorus Siculus (5.12) describes Melitē (Malta) as a Phoenician colony that was prosperous, with skilled craftsmen and fine houses. These were not primitive people.