Semantics
The ''Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
'' gives five definitions of the noun ''barbarian'', including an obsolete Barbary usage.
* 1. ''Etymologically'', A foreigner, one whose language and customs differ from the speaker's.
* 2. ''Hist''. a. One not a Greek. b. One living outside the pale of the Roman Empire and its civilization, applied especially to the northern nations that overthrew them. c. One outside the pale of
Christian civilization
Christianity has been intricately intertwined with the history and formation of Western society. Throughout its long history, the Church has been a major source of social services like schooling and medical care; an inspiration for art, cultur ...
. d. With the Italians of the Renaissance: One of a nation outside of Italy.
* 3. A rude, wild, uncivilized person. b. Sometimes distinguished from ''savage'' (perh. with a glance at 2). c. Applied by the Chinese contemptuously to foreigners.
* 4. An uncultured person, or one who has no sympathy with literary culture.
* †5. A native of Barbary.
ee Barbary Coast.">Barbary_Coast.html" ;"title="ee Barbary Coast">ee Barbary Coast.''Obs''. †b.
Barbary pirates
The Barbary pirates, or Barbary corsairs or Ottoman corsairs, were Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa, based primarily in the ports of Salé, Rabat, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, Libya, Tripoli. This area was known i ...
& Barb horse, A Barbary horse. ''Obs''.
The ''OED'' ''barbarous'' entry summarizes the semantic history. "The sense-development in ancient times was (with the Greeks) 'foreign, non-Hellenic,' later 'outlandish, rude, brutal'; (with the Romans) 'not Latin nor Greek,' then 'pertaining to those outside the Roman Empire'; hence 'uncivilized, uncultured,' and later 'non-Christian,' whence 'Saracen, heathen'; and generally 'savage, rude, savagely cruel, inhuman.'"
In classical Greco-Roman contexts
Historical developments
![Roman collared slaves - Ashmolean Museum](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Roman_collared_slaves_-_Ashmolean_Museum.jpg)
Greek attitudes towards "barbarians" developed in parallel with the growth of
chattel slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
– especially in
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
. Although the enslavement of Greeks for non-payment of
debt
Debt is an obligation that requires one party, the debtor, to pay money or other agreed-upon value to another party, the creditor. Debt is a deferred payment, or series of payments, which differentiates it from an immediate purchase. The ...
s continued in most Greek states, Athens banned this practice under
Solon
Solon ( grc-gre, Σόλων; BC) was an Athenian statesman, constitutional lawmaker and poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in Archaic Athens.Aristotle ''Politics'' ...
in the early 6th century BC. Under the
Athenian democracy
Athenian democracy developed around the 6th century BC in the Greek city-state (known as a polis) of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica. Although Athens is the most famous ancient Greek democratic city- ...
established ca. 508 BC,
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
came into use on a scale never before seen among the Greeks. Massive concentrations of slaves worked under especially brutal conditions in the silver mines at
Laureion in south-eastern Attica after the discovery of a major vein of silver-bearing ore there in 483 BC, while the phenomenon of skilled slave craftsmen producing manufactured goods in small factories and workshops became increasingly common.
Furthermore, slave-ownership no longer became the preserve of the rich: all but the poorest of Athenian households came to have slaves in order to supplement the work of their free members. The slaves of Athens that had "barbarian" origins were coming especially from lands around the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...
such as
Thrace
Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to t ...
and
Taurica
The recorded history of the Crimean Peninsula, historically known as ''Tauris'', ''Taurica'' ( gr, Ταυρική or Ταυρικά), and the ''Tauric Chersonese'' ( gr, Χερσόνησος Ταυρική, "Tauric Peninsula"), begins around the ...
(
Crimea
Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...
), while
Lydia
Lydia (Lydian language, Lydian: 𐤮𐤱𐤠𐤭𐤣𐤠, ''Śfarda''; Aramaic: ''Lydia''; el, Λυδία, ''Lȳdíā''; tr, Lidya) was an Iron Age Monarchy, kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the mod ...
ns,
Phrygians
The Phrygians (Greek: Φρύγες, ''Phruges'' or ''Phryges'') were an ancient Indo-European speaking people, who inhabited central-western Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) in antiquity. They were related to the Greeks.
Ancient Greek authors used ...
and
Carians
The Carians (; grc, Κᾶρες, ''Kares'', plural of , ''Kar'') were the ancient inhabitants of Caria in southwest Anatolia.
Historical accounts Karkisa
It is not clear when the Carians enter into history. The definition is dependent on c ...
came from
Asia Minor
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
.
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
(''
Politics
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
'' 1.2–7; 3.14) characterises barbarians as slaves by nature.
From this period, words like ''barbarophonos'', cited above from Homer, came into use not only for the sound of a foreign language but also for foreigners who spoke Greek improperly. In the Greek language, the word ''
logos
''Logos'' (, ; grc, wikt:λόγος, λόγος, lógos, lit=word, discourse, or reason) is a term used in Western philosophy, psychology and rhetoric and refers to the appeal to reason that relies on logic or reason, inductive and deductive ...
'' expressed both the notions of "language" and "reason", so Greek-speakers readily conflated speaking poorly with stupidity.
Further changes occurred in the connotations of ''barbari''/''barbaroi'' in
Late Antiquity
Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English ha ...
, when
bishop
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
s and
''catholikoi'' were appointed to sees connected to cities among the "civilized" ''gentes barbaricae'' such as in
Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
or
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, whereas bishops were appointed to supervise entire peoples among the less settled.
Eventually the term found a hidden meaning through the
folk etymology
Folk etymology (also known as popular etymology, analogical reformation, reanalysis, morphological reanalysis or etymological reinterpretation) is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more famili ...
of
Cassiodorus
Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 – c. 585), commonly known as Cassiodorus (), was a Roman statesman, renowned scholar of antiquity, and writer serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. ''Senator'' w ...
(c. 485 – c. 585). He stated that 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".
Hellenic stereotypes
From classical origins the Hellenic stereotype of barbarism evolved: barbarians are like children, unable to speak or reason properly, cowardly, effeminate, luxurious, cruel, unable to control their appetites and desires, politically unable to govern themselves. Writers voiced these stereotypes with much shrillness –
Isocrates
Isocrates (; grc, Ἰσοκράτης ; 436–338 BC) was an ancient Greek rhetorician, one of the ten Attic orators. Among the most influential Greek rhetoricians of his time, Isocrates made many contributions to rhetoric and education throu ...
in the 4th century B.C., for example, called for a war of conquest against
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
as a
panacea
In Greek mythology, Panacea (Greek ''Πανάκεια'', Panakeia), a goddess of universal remedy, was the daughter of Asclepius and Epione. Panacea and her four sisters each performed a facet of Apollo's art:
* Panacea (the goddess of universal ...
for Greek problems.
However, the disparaging Hellenic stereotype of barbarians did not totally dominate Hellenic attitudes.
Xenophon
Xenophon of Athens (; grc, wikt:Ξενοφῶν, Ξενοφῶν ; – probably 355 or 354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian, born in Athens. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected commander of one of the biggest Anci ...
(died 354 B.C.), for example, wrote the ''
Cyropaedia
The ''Cyropaedia'', sometimes spelled ''Cyropedia'', is a partly fictional biography of Cyrus the Great, the founder of Persia's Achaemenid Empire. It was written around 370 BC by Xenophon, the Athenian-born soldier, historian, and student of Soc ...
'', a laudatory fictionalised account of
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia (; peo, 𐎤𐎢𐎽𐎢𐏁 ), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the first Persian empire. Schmitt Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Under his rule, the empire embraced ...
, the founder of the
Persian Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, wikt:𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎶, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an History of Iran#Classical antiquity, ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Bas ...
, effectively a
utopia
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', describing a fictional ...
n text. In his ''
Anabasis
Anabasis (from Greek ''ana'' = "upward", ''bainein'' = "to step or march") is an expedition from a coastline into the interior of a country. Anabase and Anabasis may also refer to:
History
* ''Anabasis Alexandri'' (''Anabasis of Alexander''), a ...
'', Xenophon's accounts of the Persians and other non-Greeks who he knew or encountered show few traces of the stereotypes.
In
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
's ''
Protagoras
Protagoras (; el, Πρωταγόρας; )Guthrie, p. 262–263. was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and rhetorical theorist. He is numbered as one of the sophists by Plato. In his dialogue '' Protagoras'', Plato credits him with inventing the r ...
'', Prodicus of Ceos calls "barbarian" the
Aeolian dialect that
Pittacus of Mytilene
Pittacus (; grc-gre, Πιττακός; 640 – 568 BC) was an ancient Mytilenean military general and one of the Seven Sages of Greece.
Biography
Pittacus was a native of Mytilene and son of Hyrradius. He became a Mytilenaean general who, with ...
spoke.
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
makes the difference between Greeks and barbarians one of the central themes of his book on ''
Politics
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
'', and quotes
Euripides
Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful e ...
approvingly, "Tis meet that Greeks should rule barbarians".
The renowned
orator
An orator, or oratist, is a public speaker, especially one who is eloquent or skilled.
Etymology
Recorded in English c. 1374, with a meaning of "one who pleads or argues for a cause", from Anglo-French ''oratour'', Old French ''orateur'' (14th ...
Demosthenes
Demosthenes (; el, Δημοσθένης, translit=Dēmosthénēs; ; 384 – 12 October 322 BC) was a Greek statesman and orator in ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prow ...
(384–322 B.C.) made derogatory comments in his speeches, using the word "barbarian".
In the
Bible's New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
,
St. Paul
Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...
(from
Tarsus) – lived about A.D. 5 to about A.D. 67) uses the word ''barbarian'' in its Hellenic sense to refer to non-Greeks (''
Romans
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
1:14''), and he also uses it to characterise one who merely speaks a different language (''
1 Corinthians
The First Epistle to the Corinthians ( grc, Α΄ ᾽Επιστολὴ πρὸς Κορινθίους) is one of the Pauline epistles, part of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The epistle is attributed to Paul the Apostle and a co-aut ...
14:11'').
About a hundred years after Paul's time,
Lucian
Lucian of Samosata, '; la, Lucianus Samosatensis ( 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer
Pamphleteer is a historical term for someone who creates or distributes pamphlets, unbound (and therefore ...
– a native of
Samosata
Samsat ( ku, Samîsad), formerly Samosata ( grc, Σαμόσατα) is a small town in the Adıyaman Province of Turkey, situated on the upper Euphrates river. It is the seat of Samsat District.[Commagene
Commagene ( grc-gre, Κομμαγηνή) was an ancient Greco-Iranian kingdom ruled by a Hellenized branch of the Iranian Orontid dynasty that had ruled over Armenia. The kingdom was located in and around the ancient city of Samosata, which ser ...]
, which had been absorbed by the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
and made part of the province of
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
– used the term "barbarian" to describe himself. Because he was a noted satirist, this could have indicated self-deprecating irony. It might also have suggested descent from Samosata's original
Semitic population – who were likely called "barbarians by later Hellenistic,
Greek-speaking settlers", and might have eventually taken up this appellation themselves.
The term retained its standard usage in the
Greek language
Greek ( el, label=Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy (Calabria and Salento), southern Al ...
throughout the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
;
Byzantine Greeks
The Byzantine Greeks were the Greek-speaking Eastern Romans of Orthodox Christianity throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. They were the main inhabitants of the lands of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire), of Constantinople ...
used it widely until the fall of the
Eastern Roman Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
, (later named the
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
) in the 15th century (1453 with the fall of capital city
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
}.
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...
(106–43 BC) described the mountain area of inner
Sardinia
Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...
as "a land of barbarians", with these inhabitants also known by the manifestly pejorative term ''latrones mastrucati'' ("thieves with a rough garment in wool").
The region, still known as "
Barbagia
Barbagia (; sc, Barbàgia or ) is a geographical region, geographical, cultural region, cultural and natural region of inner Sardinia, contained for the most part in the province of Nuoro and Ogliastra and located alongside the Gennargentu massi ...
" (in
Sardinian ''Barbàgia'' or ''Barbàza''), preserves this old "barbarian" designation in its name – but it no longer consciously retains "barbarian" associations: the inhabitants of the area themselves use the name naturally and unaffectedly.
The Dying Galatian statue
![Dying gaul](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Dying_gaul.jpg)
The statue of the ''
Dying Galatian
Dying is the final stage of life which will eventually lead to death. Diagnosing dying is a complex process of clinical decision-making, and most practice checklists facilitating this diagnosis are based on cancer diagnoses.
Signs of dying ...
'' provides some insight into the Hellenistic perception of and attitude towards "Barbarians".
Attalus I
Attalus I ( grc, Ἄτταλος Α΄), surnamed ''Soter'' ( el, , "Savior"; 269–197 BC) ruled Pergamon, an Ionian Greek polis (what is now Bergama, Turkey), first as dynast, later as king, from 241 BC to 197 BC. He was the first ...
of
Pergamon
Pergamon or Pergamum ( or ; grc-gre, Πέργαμον), also referred to by its modern Greek form Pergamos (), was a rich and powerful ancient Greece, ancient Greek city in Mysia. It is located from the modern coastline of the Aegean Sea on a ...
(ruled 241–197 BC) commissioned (220s BC) a statue to celebrate his victory (ca 232 BC) over the Celtic
Galatia
Galatia (; grc, Γαλατία, ''Galatía'', "Gaul") was an ancient area in the highlands of central Anatolia, roughly corresponding to the provinces of Ankara and Eskişehir, in modern Turkey. Galatia was named after the Gauls from Thrace (c ...
ns in
Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
(the bronze original is lost, but a
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
marble copy was found in the 17th century). The statue depicts with remarkable realism a dying Celt warrior with a typically Celtic hairstyle and moustache. He sits on his fallen shield while a sword and other objects lie beside him. He appears to be fighting against death, refusing to accept his fate.
The statue serves both as a reminder of the Celts' defeat, thus demonstrating the might of the people who defeated them, and a memorial to their bravery as worthy adversaries. As
H. W. Janson
Horst Woldemar Janson (October 4, 1913 – September 30, 1982), was a Russian Empire-born German-American professor of art history best known for his ''History of Art'', which was first published in 1962 and has since sold more than four million c ...
comments, the sculpture conveys the message that "they knew how to die, barbarians that they were".
Utter barbarism, civilization, and the noble savage
The Greeks admired
Scythia
Scythia (Scythian: ; Old Persian: ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) or Scythica (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ), also known as Pontic Scythia, was a kingdom created by the Scythians during the 6th to 3rd centuries BC in the Pontic–Caspian steppe.
His ...
ns and
Galatia
Galatia (; grc, Γαλατία, ''Galatía'', "Gaul") was an ancient area in the highlands of central Anatolia, roughly corresponding to the provinces of Ankara and Eskişehir, in modern Turkey. Galatia was named after the Gauls from Thrace (c ...
ns as heroic individuals – and even (as in the case of
Anacharsis
Anacharsis (; grc, Ἀνάχαρσις) was a Scythian philosopher; he travelled from his homeland on the northern shores of the Black Sea, to Ancient Athens, in the early 6th century BC, and made a great impression as a forthright and outspoken ...
) as philosophers – but they regarded their culture as barbaric. The
Romans
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
indiscriminately characterised the various
Germanic tribes
The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and ear ...
, the settled
Gauls
The Gauls ( la, Galli; grc, Γαλάται, ''Galátai'') were a group of Celtic peoples of mainland Europe in the Iron Age and the Roman period (roughly 5th century BC to 5th century AD). Their homeland was known as Gaul (''Gallia''). They s ...
, and the raiding
Hun
The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...
s as barbarians, and subsequent classically oriented historical narratives depicted the migrations associated with the end of the
Western Roman Empire
The Western Roman Empire comprised the western provinces of the Roman Empire at any time during which they were administered by a separate independent Imperial court; in particular, this term is used in historiography to describe the period fr ...
as the "
barbarian invasions
The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman ...
".
The Romans adapted the term in order to refer to anything that was non-Roman. The German cultural historian Silvio Vietta points out that the meaning of the word "barbarous" has undergone a semantic change in modern times, after
Michel de Montaigne
Michel Eyquem, Sieur de Montaigne ( ; ; 28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592), also known as the Lord of Montaigne, was one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance. He is known for popularizing the essay as a liter ...
used it to characterize the activities of the Spaniards in the New World – representatives of the more technologically advanced, higher European culture – as "barbarous," in a satirical essay published in the year 1580. It was not the supposedly "uncivilized" Indian tribes who were "barbarous", but the conquering Spaniards. Montaigne argued that Europeans noted the barbarism of other cultures but not the crueler and more brutal actions of their own societies, particularly (in his time) during the so-called
religious wars
A religious war or a war of religion, sometimes also known as a holy war ( la, sanctum bellum), is a war which is primarily caused or justified by differences in religion. In the modern period, there are frequent debates over the extent to wh ...
. In Montaigne's view, his own people – the Europeans – were the real "barbarians". In this way, the argument was turned around and applied to the European invaders. With this shift in meaning, a whole literature arose in Europe that characterized the indigenous Indian peoples as innocent, and the militarily superior Europeans as "barbarous" intruders invading a paradisical world.
In non-Western historical contexts
Historically, the term ''barbarian'' has seen widespread use in English. Many peoples have dismissed alien cultures and even rival civilizations, because they were unrecognizably strange. For instance, the nomadic
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West, Central, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members speak languages belonging t ...
north of the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...
, including the
Pechenegs
The Pechenegs () or Patzinaks tr, Peçenek(ler), Middle Turkic: , ro, Pecenegi, russian: Печенег(и), uk, Печеніг(и), hu, Besenyő(k), gr, Πατζινάκοι, Πετσενέγοι, Πατζινακίται, ka, პა ...
and the
Kipchaks
The Kipchaks or Qipchaks, also known as Kipchak Turks or Polovtsians, were a Turkic nomadic people and confederation that existed in the Middle Ages, inhabiting parts of the Eurasian Steppe. First mentioned in the 8th century as part of the Se ...
, were called barbarians by the
Byzantines.
Middle East and North Africa
![Purchase of Christian captives from the Barbary States](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Purchase_of_Christian_captives_from_the_Barbary_States.jpg)
The native ''
Berbers
, image = File:Berber_flag.svg
, caption = The Berber ethnic flag
, population = 36 million
, region1 = Morocco
, pop1 = 14 million to 18 million
, region2 = Algeria
, pop2 ...
'' of
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
were among the many peoples called "Barbarian" by the early Romans. The term continued to be used by medieval
Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
s (see
Berber etymology) before being replaced by "
Amazigh
, image = File:Berber_flag.svg
, caption = The Berber ethnic flag
, population = 36 million
, region1 = Morocco
, pop1 = 14 million to 18 million
, region2 = Algeria
, pop2 ...
". In English, the term "Berber" continues to be used as an
exonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...
. The geographical term
Barbary or
Barbary Coast, and the name of the
Barbary pirates
The Barbary pirates, or Barbary corsairs or Ottoman corsairs, were Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa, based primarily in the ports of Salé, Rabat, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, Libya, Tripoli. This area was known i ...
based on that coast (and who were not necessarily Berbers) were also derived from it.
The term has also been used to refer to people from
Barbary, a region encompassing most of
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
. The name of the region, ''Barbary,'' comes from the Arabic word ''Barbar,'' possibly from the Latin word ''barbaricum,'' meaning "land of the barbarians."
Many languages define the "Other" as those who do not speak one's language; Greek ''barbaroi'' was paralleled by
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
''
ajam
''Ajam'' ( ar, عجم, ʿajam) is an Arabic word meaning mute, which today refers to someone whose mother tongue is not Arabic. During the Arab conquest of Persia, the term became a racial pejorative. In many languages, including Persian, Tur ...
'' "non-Arabic speakers; non-Arabs; (especially)
Persians
The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group who comprise over half of the population of Iran. They share a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language as well as of the languages that are closely related to Persian.
...
."
India
In the ancient Indian epic
Mahabharata
The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the ''Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the Kuruk ...
, the Sanskrit onomatopoeic word ''barbara-'' referred to the incomprehensible, unfamiliar speech (perceived as "babbling", "incoherent stammering") of non-Vedic peoples ("wretch, foreigner, sinful people, low and barbarous".)
Sinosphere
China
The term "Barbarian" in traditional Chinese culture had several aspects. For one thing, Chinese has more than one historical "barbarian"
exonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...
. Several historical
Chinese characters
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...
for non-Chinese peoples were
graphic pejoratives. The character for the
Yao people
The Yao people (its majority branch is also known as Mien; ; vi, người Dao) is a government classification for various minorities in China and Vietnam. They are one of the 55 officially recognised ethnic minorities in China and reside in ...
, for instance, was changed from ''yao'' 猺 "jackal" to ''yao'' 瑤 "precious jade" in the modern period. The original
Hua–Yi distinction
The distinction between ''Huá'' and ''Yí'' ( zh, t=, p=Huá Yí zhī biàn), also known as Sino–barbarian dichotomy, is a historical Chinese concept that differentiated a culturally defined "China" (called Huá, Huaxia , or Xià ) from cultur ...
between Hua ("Chinese") and Yi (commonly translated as "barbarian") was based on culture and power but not on race.
Historically, the Chinese used various words for foreign ethnic groups. They include terms like 夷 ''Yi'', which is often translated as "barbarians." Despite this conventional translation, there are also other ways of translating ''Yi'' into English. Some of the examples include "foreigners," "ordinary others," "wild tribes," "uncivilized tribes," and so forth.
History and terminology
Chinese historical records mention what may now perhaps be termed "barbarian" peoples for over four millennia, although this considerably predates the
Greek language
Greek ( el, label=Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy (Calabria and Salento), southern Al ...
origin of the term "barbarian", at least as is known from the thirty-four centuries of written records in the Greek language. The sinologist
Herrlee Glessner Creel
Herrlee Glessner Creel (January 19, 1905June 1, 1994) was an American Sinologist and philosopher who specialized in Chinese philosophy and history, and was a professor of Chinese at the University of Chicago for nearly 40 years. On his retirement ...
said, "Throughout Chinese history "the barbarians" have been a constant motif, sometimes minor, sometimes very major indeed. They figure prominently in the Shang oracle inscriptions, and the dynasty that came to an end only in 1912 was, from the Chinese point of view, barbarian."
Shang dynasty
The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty founded by Tang of Shang (Cheng Tang) that ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and ...
(1600–1046 BC)
oracles
An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination.
Description
The word '' ...
and
bronze inscriptions
Chinese bronze inscriptions, also commonly referred to as bronze script or bronzeware script, are writing in a variety of Chinese scripts on ritual bronzes such as ''zhōng'' bells and '' dǐng'' tripodal cauldrons from the Shang dynasty (2nd mi ...
first recorded specific Chinese
exonyms
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, o ...
for foreigners, often in contexts of warfare or tribute. King
Wu Ding
Wu Ding (); personal name Zi Zhao, was a king of the Shang dynasty who ruled China around 1200s BC. He is the earliest figure in Chinese history mentioned in contemporary records. The annals of the Shang dynasty compiled by later historians were o ...
(r. 1250–1192 BC), for instance, fought with the
Guifang Guifang () was an ancient ethnonym for a northern people that fought against the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE). Chinese historical tradition identified the Guifang with the Rong, Di,Old Text Bamboo Annals"Wu Yi"quote: "三十五年,周王季伐 ...
鬼方,
Di 氐, and
Qiang 羌 "barbarians."
During the
Spring and Autumn period
The Spring and Autumn period was a period in Chinese history from approximately 770 to 476 BC (or according to some authorities until 403 BC) which corresponds roughly to the first half of the Eastern Zhou period. The period's name derives fr ...
(771–476 BC), the meanings of four exonyms were expanded. "These included Rong, Yi, Man, and Di—all general designations referring to the barbarian tribes." These ''
Siyi
The Siyi (Seiyap or Sze Yup in Cantonese; ) refers to the four former counties of Xinhui (Sunwui), Taishan (Toisan), Kaiping (Hoiping) and Enping (Yanping) on the west side of the Pearl River Delta in Southern Guangdong Province, China.
Geograp ...
'' 四夷 "Four Barbarians", most "probably the names of ethnic groups originally,"
[Creel (1970), 197.] were the Yi or
Dongyi
The Dongyi or Eastern Yi () was a collective term for ancient peoples found in Chinese records. The definition of Dongyi varied across the ages, but in most cases referred to inhabitants of eastern China, then later, the Korean peninsula, and Ja ...
東夷 "eastern barbarians," Man or
Nanman
The Man, commonly known as the Nanman or Southern Man (, ''lit. Southern Barbarians''), were ancient indigenous peoples who lived in inland South and Southwest China, mainly around the Yangtze River valley. In ancient Chinese sources, the term ...
南蠻 "southern barbarians," Rong or
Xirong
Xirong () or Rong were various people who lived primarily in and around the western extremities of ancient China (in modern Gansu and Qinghai). They were known as early as the Shang dynasty (1765–1122 BCE), as one of the Four Barbarians that ...
西戎 "western barbarians," and Di or
Beidi
The Di or Beidi (Northern Di) were various ethnic groups who lived north of the Chinese (''Huaxia'') realms during the Zhou dynasty. Although initially described as nomadic, they seem to have practiced a mixed pastoral, agricultural, and hunting ...
北狄 "northern barbarians." The Russian anthropologist
Mikhail Kryukov
Mikhail Kryukov (born 1932) is an anthropologist and historian.
Born in Moscow, Kryukov attended Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies, where he received a B.A. in 1954. He earned an M.A. in 1955 from Moscow Institute of International Relations, ...
concluded.
Evidently, the barbarian tribes at first had individual names, but during about the middle of the first millennium B.C., they were classified schematically according to the four cardinal points of the compass. This would, in the final analysis, mean that once again territory had become the primary criterion of the we-group, whereas the consciousness of common origin remained secondary. What continued to be important were the factors of language, the acceptance of certain forms of material culture, the adherence to certain rituals, and, above all, the economy and the way of life. Agriculture was the only appropriate way of life for the Hua-Hsia.
![Raising an army](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Raising_an_army.jpg)
The
Chinese classics
Chinese classic texts or canonical texts () or simply dianji (典籍) refers to the Chinese texts which originated before the imperial unification by the Qin dynasty in 221 BC, particularly the "Four Books and Five Classics" of the Neo-Confucian ...
use compounds of these four generic names in localized "barbarian tribes" exonyms such as "west and north" ''Rongdi'', "south and east" ''Manyi'', ''Nanyibeidi'' "barbarian tribes in the south and the north," and ''Manyirongdi'' "all kinds of barbarians." Creel says the Chinese evidently came to use ''Rongdi'' and ''Manyi'' "as generalized terms denoting 'non-Chinese,' 'foreigners,' 'barbarians'," and a statement such as "the Rong and Di are wolves" (''Zuozhuan'', Min 1) is "very much like the assertion that many people in many lands will make today, that 'no foreigner can be trusted'."
The Chinese had at least two reasons for vilifying and depreciating the non-Chinese groups. On the one hand, many of them harassed and pillaged the Chinese, which gave them a genuine grievance. On the other, it is quite clear that the Chinese were increasingly encroaching upon the territory of these peoples, getting the better of them by trickery, and putting many of them under subjection. By vilifying them and depicting them as somewhat less than human, the Chinese could justify their conduct and still any qualms of conscience.
This word ''Yi'' has both specific references, such as to ''Huaiyi'' 淮夷 peoples in the
Huai River
The Huai River (), Postal Map Romanization, formerly romanization of Chinese, romanized as the Hwai, is a major river in China. It is located about midway between the Yellow River and Yangtze, the two longest rivers and largest drainage basins ...
region, and generalized references to "barbarian; foreigner; non-Chinese." ''
Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage
''Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage'', compiled by the linguist and author Lin Yutang, contains over 8,100 character head entries and 110,000 words and phrases, including many neologisms. Lin's dictionary made two lexicograp ...
'' translates ''Yi'' as "Anc
ent
Ents are a species of beings in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world Middle-earth who closely resemble trees; their leader is Treebeard of Fangorn forest. Their name is derived from an Old English word for giant.
The Ents appear in ''The Lord of ...
barbarian tribe on east border, any border or foreign tribe." The sinologist
Edwin G. Pulleyblank
Edwin George "Ted" Pulleyblank (August 7, 1922 – April 13, 2013) was a Canadian sinologist and professor at the University of British Columbia. He was known for his studies of the historical phonology of Chinese.
Life and career
Edwin G. " ...
says the name ''Yi'' "furnished the primary Chinese term for 'barbarian'," but "Paradoxically the Yi were considered the most civilized of the non-Chinese peoples.
=Idealization
=
Some Chinese classics romanticize or idealize barbarians, comparable to the western
noble savage
A noble savage is a literary stock character who embodies the concept of the indigene, outsider, wild human, an "other" who has not been "corrupted" by civilization, and therefore symbolizes humanity's innate goodness. Besides appearing in man ...
construct. For instance, the Confucian ''
Analects
The ''Analects'' (; ; Old Chinese: '' ŋ(r)aʔ''; meaning "Selected Sayings"), also known as the ''Analects of Confucius'', the ''Sayings of Confucius'', or the ''Lun Yu'', is an ancient Chinese book composed of a large collection of sayings a ...
'' records:
* The Master said, The
狄barbarians of the East and North have retained their princes. They are not in such a state of decay as we in China.
* The Master said, The Way makes no progress. I shall get upon a raft and float out to sea.
* The Master wanted to settle among the
夷Nine Wild Tribes of the East. Someone said, I am afraid you would find it hard to put up with their lack of refinement. The Master said, Were a true gentleman to settle among them there would soon be no trouble about lack of refinement.
The translator
Arthur Waley
Arthur David Waley (born Arthur David Schloss, 19 August 188927 June 1966) was an English orientalist and sinologist who achieved both popular and scholarly acclaim for his translations of Chinese and Japanese poetry. Among his honours were th ...
noted that, "A certain idealization of the 'noble savage' is to be found fairly often in early Chinese literature", citing the ''
Zuo Zhuan'' maxim, "When the Emperor no longer functions, learning must be sought among the 'Four Barbarians,' north, west, east, and south." Professor Creel said,
From ancient to modern times the Chinese attitude toward people not Chinese in culture—"barbarians"—has commonly been one of contempt, sometimes tinged with fear ... It must be noted that, while the Chinese have disparaged barbarians, they have been singularly hospitable both to individuals and to groups that have adopted Chinese culture. And at times they seem to have had a certain admiration, perhaps unwilling, for the rude force of these peoples or simpler customs.
In a somewhat related example,
Mencius
Mencius ( ); born Mèng Kē (); or Mèngzǐ (; 372–289 BC) was a Chinese Confucianism, Confucian Chinese philosophy, philosopher who has often been described as the "second Sage", that is, second to Confucius himself. He is part of Confuc ...
believed that Confucian practices were universal and timeless, and thus followed by both Hua and Yi, "
Shun
Shun may refer to one of the following:
*To shun, which means avoiding association with an individual or group
* Shun (given name), a masculine Japanese given name
*Seasonality in Japanese cuisine (''shun'', 旬)
Emperor Shun
* Emperor Shun ( ...
was an Eastern barbarian; he was born in Chu Feng, moved to Fu Hsia, and died in Ming T'iao.
King Wen was a Western barbarian; he was born in Ch'i Chou and died in Pi Ying. Their native places were over a thousand ''li'' apart, and there were a thousand years between them. Yet when they had their way in the Central Kingdoms, their actions matched like the two halves of a tally. The standards of the two sages, one earlier and one later, were identical."
The prominent (121 CE) ''
Shuowen Jiezi
''Shuowen Jiezi'' () is an ancient Chinese dictionary from the Han dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary (the '' Erya'' predates it), it was the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give ...
'' character dictionary, defines ''yi'' 夷 as "men of the east" 東方之人也. The dictionary also informs that ''Yi'' is not dissimilar from the ''Xia'' 夏, which means Chinese. Elsewhere in the ''Shuowen Jiezi'', under the entry of ''qiang'' 羌, the term ''yi'' is associated with benevolence and human longevity. ''Yi'' countries are therefore virtuous places where people live long lives. This is why Confucius wanted to go to ''yi'' countries when the ''dao'' could not be realized in the central states.
=Pejorative Chinese characters
=
Some
Chinese characters
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...
used to
transcribe
Transcription refers to the process of converting sounds (voice, music etc.) into letters or musical notes, or producing a copy of something in another medium, including:
Genetics
* Transcription (biology), the copying of DNA into RNA, the fir ...
non-Chinese peoples were graphically pejorative
ethnic slurs
The following is a list of ethnic slurs or ethnophaulisms or ethnic epithets that are, or have been, used as insinuations or allegations about members of a given ethnicity or racial group or to refer to them in a derogatory, pejorative, or oth ...
, in which the insult derived not from the Chinese word but from the character used to write it. For instance, the
Written Chinese
Written Chinese () comprises Chinese characters used to represent the Chinese language. Chinese characters do not constitute an alphabet or a compact syllabary. Rather, the writing system is roughly Logogram, logosyllabic; that is, a character gen ...
transcription of ''Yao'' "the
Yao people
The Yao people (its majority branch is also known as Mien; ; vi, người Dao) is a government classification for various minorities in China and Vietnam. They are one of the 55 officially recognised ethnic minorities in China and reside in ...
", who primarily live in the mountains of southwest China and Vietnam. When 11th-century
Song Dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
authors first transcribed the
exonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...
''Yao'', they insultingly chose ''yao'' 猺 "jackal" from a lexical selection of over 100 characters pronounced ''yao'' (e.g., 腰 "waist", 遙 "distant", 搖 "shake"). During a series of 20th-century Chinese
language reform
Language reform is a kind of language planning by widespread change to a language. The typical methods of language reform are simplification and linguistic purism. Simplification regularises vocabulary, grammar, or spelling. Purism aligns the langu ...
s, this graphic pejorative
猺 (written with the 犭"
dog/beast radical") "jackal; the Yao" was replaced twice; first with the invented character ''yao''
傜 (亻"
human radical") "the Yao", then with ''yao''
瑤 (玉 "
jade radical") "precious jade; the Yao." Chinese
orthography
An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.
Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...
(symbols used to write a language) can provide unique opportunities to write ethnic insults
logograph
In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced '' hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, ...
ically that do not exist alphabetically. For the Yao ethnic group, there is a difference between the transcriptions ''Yao'' 猺 "jackal" and ''Yao'' 瑤 "jade" but none between the
romanizations
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...
''Yao'' and ''Yau''.
=Cultural and racial barbarianism
=
![Great wall of china-mutianyu 3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Great_wall_of_china-mutianyu_3.JPG)
According to the archeologist William Meacham, it was only by the time of the late
Shang dynasty
The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty founded by Tang of Shang (Cheng Tang) that ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and ...
that one can speak of "
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
," "
Chinese culture
Chinese culture () is one of the world's oldest cultures, originating thousands of years ago. The culture prevails across a large geographical region in East Asia and is extremely diverse and varying, with customs and traditions varying grea ...
," or "Chinese civilization." "There is a sense in which the traditional view of ancient Chinese history is correct (and perhaps it originated ultimately in the first appearance of dynastic civilization): those on the fringes and outside this esoteric event were "barbarians" in that they did not enjoy (or suffer from) the fruit of civilization until they were brought into close contact with it by an imperial expansion of the civilization itself."
In a similar vein, Creel explained the significance of Confucian ''
li'' "ritual; rites; propriety".
The fundamental criterion of "Chinese-ness," anciently and throughout history, has been cultural. The Chinese have had a particular way of life, a particular complex of usages, sometimes characterized as ''li''. Groups that conformed to this way of life were, generally speaking, considered Chinese. Those that turned away from it were considered to cease to be Chinese. ... It was the process of acculturation, transforming barbarians into Chinese, that created the great bulk of the Chinese people. The barbarians of Western Chou times were, for the most part, future Chinese, or the ancestors of future Chinese. This is a fact of great importance. ... It is significant, however, that we almost never find any references in the early literature to physical differences between Chinese and barbarians. Insofar as we can tell, the distinction was purely cultural.
Dikötter says,
Thought in ancient China was oriented towards the world, or ''tianxia
''Tianxia'' (), literally meaning "(all) under Heaven", is a Chinese term for a historical Chinese cultural concept that denoted either the entire geographical world or the metaphysical realm of mortals, and later became associated with polit ...
'', "all under heaven." The world was perceived as one homogenous unity named "great community" (''datong
Datong is a prefecture-level city in northern Shanxi Province in the People's Republic of China. It is located in the Datong Basin at an elevation of and borders Inner Mongolia to the north and west and Hebei to the east. As of the 2020 cens ...
'') The Middle Kingdom hina
Hina may refer to:
People and deities
* Hina (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name
* Hina (chiefess), a name given to several noble ladies who lived in ancient Hawaii
* Hina (goddess), the name assigned to ...
dominated by the assumption of its cultural superiority, measured outgroups according to a yardstick by which those who did not follow the "Chinese ways" were considered "barbarians." A Theory of "using the Chinese ways to transform the barbarian" as strongly advocated. It was believed that the barbarian could be culturally assimilated. In the Age of Great Peace, the barbarians would flow in and be transformed: the world would be one.
According to the Pakistani academic
M. Shahid Alam
Muhammad Shahid Alam is a Pakistani economist, academic, and social scientist. He is a professor of economics at Northeastern University. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Institute for Policy Research & Development, London.
Backgroun ...
, "The centrality of culture, rather than race, in the Chinese world view had an important corollary. Nearly always, this translated into a civilizing mission rooted in the premise that 'the barbarians could be culturally assimilated'"; namely ''laihua'' 來化 "come and be transformed" or ''Hanhua'' 漢化 "become Chinese; be sinicized."
Two millennia before the French anthropologist
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthro ...
wrote ''
The Raw and the Cooked
''The Raw and the Cooked'' (1964) is the first volume from ''Mythologiques'', a structural study of Amerindian mythology written by French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. It was originally published in French as '. Although the book is par ...
'', the Chinese differentiated "raw" and "cooked" categories of barbarian peoples who lived in China. The ''shufan'' 熟番 "cooked
ood eating
The Ood are an alien species with telepathic abilities from the long-running science fiction series ''Doctor Who''. In the series' narrative, they live in the distant future (circa 42nd century).
The Ood are portrayed as a slave race, natural ...
barbarians" are sometimes interpreted as Sinicized, and the ''shengfan'' 生番 "raw
ood eating
The Ood are an alien species with telepathic abilities from the long-running science fiction series ''Doctor Who''. In the series' narrative, they live in the distant future (circa 42nd century).
The Ood are portrayed as a slave race, natural ...
barbarians" as not Sinicized.
The ''
Liji
The ''Book of Rites'', also known as the ''Liji'', is a collection of texts describing the social forms, administration, and ceremonial rites of the Zhou dynasty as they were understood in the Warring States and the early Han periods. The ''Book o ...
'' gives this description.
The people of those five regions – the Middle states, and the ong Ong or ONG may refer to:
Arts and media
* Ong's Hat, a collaborative work of fiction
* “Ong Ong”, a song by Blur from the album The Magic Whip
Places
* Ong, Nebraska, US, city
* Ong's Hat, New Jersey, US, ghost town
* Ong River, Odisha, India ...
i(and other wild tribes around them) – had all their several natures, which they could not be made to alter. The tribes on the east were called i They had their hair unbound, and tattooed their bodies. Some of them ate their food without its being cooked with fire. Those on the south were called Man. They tattooed their foreheads, and had their feet turned toward each other. Some of them ate their food without its being cooked with fire. Those on the west were called ong Ong or ONG may refer to:
Arts and media
* Ong's Hat, a collaborative work of fiction
* “Ong Ong”, a song by Blur from the album The Magic Whip
Places
* Ong, Nebraska, US, city
* Ong's Hat, New Jersey, US, ghost town
* Ong River, Odisha, India ...
They had their hair unbound, and wore skins. Some of them did not eat grain-food. Those on the north were called i They wore skins of animals and birds, and dwelt in caves. Some of them did not eat grain-food.
Dikötter explains the close association between
nature and nurture
Nature versus nurture is a long-standing debate in biology and society about the balance between two competing factors which determine fate: genetics (nature) and environment (nurture). The alliterative expression "nature and nurture" in English h ...
. "The ''shengfan'', literally 'raw barbarians', were considered savage and resisting. The ''shufan'', or 'cooked barbarians', were tame and submissive. The consumption of raw food was regarded as an infallible sign of savagery that affected the physiological state of the barbarian."
Some
Warring States period
The Warring States period () was an era in History of China#Ancient China, ancient Chinese history characterized by warfare, as well as bureaucratic and military reforms and consolidation. It followed the Spring and Autumn period and concluded ...
texts record a belief that the respective natures of the Chinese and the barbarian were incompatible. Mencius, for instance, once stated: "I have heard of the Chinese converting barbarians to their ways, but not of their being converted to barbarian ways." Dikötter says, "The nature of the Chinese was regarded as impermeable to the evil influences of the barbarian; no retrogression was possible. Only the barbarian might eventually change by adopting Chinese ways."
However, different thinkers and texts convey different opinions on this issue. The prominent Tang Confucian Han Yu, for example, wrote in his essay ''Yuan Dao'' the following: "When Confucius wrote the ''Chunqiu'', he said that if the feudal lords use Yi ritual, then they should be called Yi; If they use Chinese rituals, then they should be called Chinese." Han Yu went on to lament in the same essay that the Chinese of his time might all become Yi because the Tang court wanted to put Yi laws above the teachings of the former kings. Therefore, Han Yu's essay shows the possibility that the Chinese can lose their culture and become the uncivilized outsiders, and that the uncivilized outsiders have the potential to become Chinese.
After the Song Dynasty, many of China's rulers in the north were of Inner Asia ethnicities, such as the Khitans, Juchens, and Mongols of the Liao, Jin and Yuan Dynasties, the latter ended up ruling over the entire China. Hence, the historian
John King Fairbank
John King Fairbank (May 24, 1907 – September 14, 1991) was an American historian of China and United States–China relations. He taught at Harvard University from 1936 until his retirement in 1977. He is credited with building the field of Chi ...
wrote, "the influence on China of the great fact of alien conquest under the Liao-Jin-Yuan dynasties is just beginning to be explored." During the Qing Dynasty, the rulers of China adopted Confucian philosophy and Han Chinese institutions to show that the Manchu rulers had received the Mandate of Heaven to rule China. At the same time, they also tried to retain their own indigenous culture. Due to the Manchus' adoption of Han Chinese culture, most Han Chinese (though not all) did accept the Manchus as the legitimate rulers of China. Similarly, according to Fudan University historian Yao Dali, even the supposedly "patriotic" hero Wen Tianxiang of the late Song and early Yuan period did not believe the Mongol rule to be illegitimate. In fact, Wen was willing to live under Mongol rule as long as he was not forced to be a Yuan dynasty official, out of his loyalty to the Song dynasty. Yao explains that Wen chose to die in the end because he was forced to become a Yuan official. So, Wen chose death due to his loyalty to his dynasty, not because he viewed the Yuan court as a non-Chinese, illegitimate regime and therefore refused to live under their rule. Yao also says that many Chinese who were living in the Yuan-Ming transition period also shared Wen's beliefs of identifying with and putting loyalty towards one's dynasty above racial/ethnic differences. Many Han Chinese writers did not celebrate the collapse of the Mongols and the return of the Han Chinese rule in the form of the Ming dynasty government at that time. Many Han Chinese actually chose not to serve in the new Ming court at all due to their loyalty to the Yuan. Some Han Chinese also committed suicide on behalf of the Mongols as a proof of their loyalty. The founder of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, also indicated that he was happy to be born in the Yuan period and that the Yuan did legitimately receive the Mandate of Heaven to rule over China. On a side note, one of his key advisors, Liu Ji, generally supported the idea that while the Chinese and the non-Chinese are different, they are actually equal. Liu was therefore arguing against the idea that the Chinese were and are superior to the "Yi."
These things show that many times, pre-modern Chinese did view culture (and sometimes politics) rather than race and ethnicity as the dividing line between the Chinese and the non-Chinese. In many cases, the non-Chinese could and did become the Chinese and vice versa, especially when there was a change in culture.
=Modern reinterpretations
=
According to the historian
Frank Dikötter
Frank Dikötter (; ) is a Dutch historian who specialises in modern China. Dikötter has been Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong since 2006. Before relocating to Hong Kong, he was Professor of the Modern History of Ch ...
, "The delusive myth of a Chinese antiquity that abandoned racial standards in favour of a concept of cultural universalism in which all barbarians could ultimately participate has understandably attracted some modern scholars. Living in an unequal and often hostile world, it is tempting to project the utopian image of a racially harmonious world into a distant and obscure past."
The politician, historian, and diplomat
K. C. Wu
K. C. Wu () (October 21, 1903 – June 6, 1984) was a Chinese political figure and historian. Among other offices, he served as Mayor of Shanghai and as Chairman of the Taiwan Provincial Government.
Early life
Wu was born in Central China and g ...
analyzes the origin of the characters for the ''Yi'', ''Man'', ''Rong'', ''Di'', and ''Xia'' peoples and concludes that the "ancients formed these characters with only one purpose in mind—to describe the different ways of living each of these people pursued." Despite the well-known examples of pejorative exonymic characters (such as the "dog radical" in Di), he claims there is no hidden racial bias in the meanings of the characters used to describe these different peoples, but rather the differences were "in occupation or in custom, not in race or origin." K. C. Wu says the modern character
夷
The Dongyi or Eastern Yi () was a collective term for ancient peoples found in Chinese records. The definition of Dongyi varied across the ages, but in most cases referred to inhabitants of eastern China, then later, the Korean peninsula, and Ja ...
designating the historical "Yi peoples," composed of the characters for 大 "big (person)" and 弓 "bow", implies a big person carrying a bow, someone to perhaps be feared or respected, but not to be despised. However, differing from K. C. Wu, the scholar Wu Qichang believes that the earliest
oracle bone script
Oracle bone script () is an ancient form of Chinese characters that were engraved on oracle bonesanimal bones or Turtle shell#Plastron, turtle plastrons used in pyromancy, pyromantic divination. Oracle bone script was used in the late 2nd millen ...
for ''yi'' 夷 was
used interchangeably with ''shi''
尸 "corpse". The historian John Hill explains that ''Yi'' "was used rather loosely for non-Chinese populations of the east. It carried the connotation of people ignorant of Chinese culture and, therefore, 'barbarians'."
Christopher I. Beckwith makes the extraordinary claim that the name "barbarian" should only be used for Greek historical contexts, and is inapplicable for all other "peoples to whom it has been applied either historically or in modern times." Beckwith notes that most specialists in East Asian history, including him, have translated Chinese exonyms as English "''barbarian''." He believes that after academics read his published explanation of the problems, except for direct quotations of "earlier scholars who use the word, it should no longer be used as a term by any writer."
The first problem is that, "it is impossible to translate the word ''barbarian'' into Chinese because the concept does not exist in Chinese," meaning a single "completely generic"
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
from Greek ''barbar-''. "Until the Chinese borrow the word ''barbarian'' or one of its relatives, or make up a new word that explicitly includes the same basic ideas, they cannot express the idea of the 'barbarian' in Chinese.".
[Beckwith, 358.] The usual
Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern Standar ...
translation of English ''barbarian'' is ''yemanren'' (), which Beckwith claims, "actually means 'wild man, savage'. That is very definitely not the same thing as 'barbarian'."
Despite this semantic hypothesis, Chinese-English dictionaries regularly translate ''yemanren'' as "barbarian" or "barbarians." Beckwith concedes that the early Chinese "apparently disliked foreigners in general and looked down on them as having an inferior culture," and pejoratively wrote some exonyms. However, he purports, "The fact that the Chinese did not ''like'' foreigner Y and occasionally picked a transcriptional character with negative meaning (in Chinese) to write the sound of his ethnonym, is irrelevant."
Beckwith's second problem is with linguists and lexicographers of Chinese. "If one looks up in a Chinese-English dictionary the two dozen or so partly generic words used for various foreign peoples throughout Chinese history, one will find most of them defined in English as, in effect, 'a kind of barbarian'. Even the works of well-known lexicographers such as Karlgren do this."
Although Beckwith does not cite any examples, the Swedish sinologist
Bernhard Karlgren
Klas Bernhard Johannes Karlgren (; 15 October 1889 – 20 October 1978) was a Swedish sinologist and linguist who pioneered the study of Chinese historical phonology using modern comparative methods. In the early 20th century, Karlgren conducte ...
edited two dictionaries: ''Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese'' (1923) and ''
Grammata Serica Recensa
The ''Grammata Serica Recensa'' is a dictionary of Middle Chinese and Old Chinese published by the Swedish sinologist Bernard Karlgren in 1957.
History
Karlgren made fundamental contributions to the study of the phonology of Middle and Old Chi ...
'' (1957). Compare Karlgrlen's translations of the ''siyi'' "four barbarians":
* ''yi'' 夷 "barbarian, foreigner; destroy, raze to the ground," "barbarian (esp. tribes to the East of ancient China)"
* ''man'' 蛮 "barbarians of the South; barbarian, savage," "Southern barbarian"
* ''rong'' 戎 "weapons, armour; war, warrior; N. pr. of western tribes," "weapon; attack; war chariot; loan for tribes of the West"
* ''di'' 狄 "Northern Barbarians – "fire-dogs"," "name of a Northern tribe; low servant"
The ''Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus'' Project includes Karlgren's ''GSR'' definitions. Searching th
STEDT Databasefinds various "a kind of" definitions for plant and animal names (e.g., ''you'' 狖 "a kind of monkey," but not one "a kind of barbarian" definition. Besides faulting Chinese for lacking a general "barbarian" term, Beckwith also faults English, which "has no words for the many foreign peoples referred to by one or another Classical Chinese word, such as 胡 ''hú'', 夷 ''yí'', 蠻 ''mán'', and so on."
The third problem involves
Tang Dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
usages of ''fan'' "foreigner" and ''lu'' "prisoner", neither of which meant "barbarian." Beckwith says Tang texts used ''fan'' 番 or 蕃 "foreigner" (see ''shengfan'' and ''shufan'' above) as "perhaps the only true generic at any time in Chinese literature, was practically the opposite of the word ''barbarian''. It meant simply 'foreign, foreigner' without any pejorative meaning." In modern usage, ''fan'' 番 means "foreigner; barbarian; aborigine". The linguist Robert Ramsey illustrates the pejorative connotations of ''fan''.
The word "''Fān''" was formerly used by the Chinese almost innocently in the sense of 'aborigines' to refer to ethnic groups in South China, and Mao Zedong himself once used it in 1938 in a speech advocating equal rights for the various minority peoples. But that term has now been so systematically purged from the language that it is not to be found (at least in that meaning) even in large dictionaries, and all references to Mao's 1938 speech have excised the offending word and replaced it with a more elaborate locution, "Yao, Yi, and Yu."
The Tang Dynasty Chinese also had a derogatory term for foreigners, ''lu'' () "prisoner, slave, captive". Beckwith says it means something like "those miscreants who should be locked up," therefore, "The word does not even mean 'foreigner' at all, let alone 'barbarian'."
Christopher I. Beckwith's 2009 "The Barbarians" epilogue provides many references, but overlooks H. G. Creel's 1970 "The Barbarians" chapter. Creel descriptively wrote, "Who, in fact, were the barbarians? The Chinese have no single term for them. But they were all the non-Chinese, just as for the Greeks the barbarians were all the non-Greeks." Beckwith prescriptively wrote, "The Chinese, however, have still not yet borrowed Greek ''barbar''-. There is also no single native Chinese word for 'foreigner', no matter how pejorative," which meets his strict definition of "barbarian.".
=Barbarian puppet drinking game
=
In the
Tang Dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
houses of pleasure, where drinking games were common, small puppets in the aspect of Westerners, in a ridiculous state of drunkenness, were used in one popular permutation of the drinking game; so, in the form of blue-eyed, pointy nosed, and peak-capped barbarians, these puppets were manipulated in such a way as to occasionally fall down: then, whichever guest to whom the puppet pointed after falling was then obliged by honor to empty his cup of
Chinese wine
Wine (Chinese language, Chinese: ''pútáojiǔ'' lit. "grape alcohol") has a long history in China. Although long overshadowed by ''huangjiu'' (sometimes translated as "yellow wine") and the much stronger distilled spirit ''baijiu'', wine ...
.
Japan
When Europeans came to
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, they were called , literally ''Barbarians from the South'', because the
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
ships appeared to sail from the South. The
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
, who arrived later, were also called either ''nanban'' or , literally meaning "Red Hair."
Pre-Columbian Americas
In Mesoamerica the
Aztec
The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...
civilization used the word "
Chichimeca
Chichimeca () is the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples who were established in present-day Bajio region of Mexico. Chichimeca carried the meaning as the Roman term "barbarian" that des ...
" to denominate a group of nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes that lived on the outskirts of the
Triple Alliance's Empire, in the north of Modern Mexico, and whom the Aztec people saw as primitive and uncivilized. One of the meanings attributed to the word "Chichimeca" is "dog people".
The
Incas
The Inca Empire (also Quechuan and Aymaran spelling shift, known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, (Quechuan languages, Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) wa ...
of South America used the term "purum awqa" for all peoples living outside the rule of their empire (see
Promaucaes Promaucae, also spelled as ''Promaucas'' or ''Purumaucas'' (from Quechua ''purum awqa'': wild enemy), were an indigenous pre-Columbian Mapuche tribal group that lived in the present territory of Chile, south of the Maipo River basin of Santiago, Ch ...
).
European and American colonists frequently referred to
Native Americans as "savages".
Barbarian mercenaries
The entry of "barbarians" into
mercenary
A mercenary, sometimes also known as a soldier of fortune or hired gun, is a private individual, particularly a soldier, that joins a military conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any o ...
service in a metropole repeatedly occurred in history as a standard way in which peripheral peoples from and beyond
frontier
A frontier is the political and geographical area near or beyond a boundary. A frontier can also be referred to as a "front". The term came from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"—the region of a country that fronts o ...
regions interact with imperial powers as part of a (semi-)foreign militarised proletariat.
Examples include:
* nomadic frontier tribes serving in
pre-modern China
* mainly
Germanic soldiery in the
armies
An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
of the declining
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
* Viking
Varangian guard
The Varangian Guard ( el, Τάγμα τῶν Βαράγγων, ''Tágma tōn Varángōn'') was an elite unit of the Byzantine Army from the tenth to the fourteenth century who served as personal bodyguards to the Byzantine emperors. The Varangi ...
s in imperial
Byzantium
Byzantium () or Byzantion ( grc, Βυζάντιον) was an ancient Greek city in classical antiquity that became known as Constantinople in late antiquity and Istanbul today. The Greek name ''Byzantion'' and its Latinization ''Byzantium'' cont ...
* Turkic mercenaries in the
Abbasid Caliphate
The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...
* Widespread use of ethnic mercenary forces in pre-historic
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. W ...
*
Cossack
The Cossacks , es, cosaco , et, Kasakad, cazacii , fi, Kasakat, cazacii , french: cosaques , hu, kozákok, cazacii , it, cosacchi , orv, коза́ки, pl, Kozacy , pt, cossacos , ro, cazaci , russian: казаки́ or ...
units in the armies of (for example)
Poland-Lithuania and of
pre-Soviet Russia
*
Gurkha
The Gurkhas or Gorkhas (), with endonym Gorkhali ), are soldiers native to the Indian Subcontinent, chiefly residing within Nepal and some parts of Northeast India.
The Gurkha units are composed of Nepalis and Indian Gorkhas and are recruit ...
s in the
colonial
Colonial or The Colonial may refer to:
* Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology)
Architecture
* American colonial architecture
* French Colonial
* Spanish Colonial architecture
Automobiles
* Colonial (1920 au ...
and
postcolonial Indian military
Early Modern period
![IMG 7039 - Milano - Casa degli omenoni - Sarmata - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto - 8-Mar-2007 crop](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/IMG_7039_-_Milano_-_Casa_degli_omenoni_-_Sarmata_-_Foto_Giovanni_Dall%27Orto_-_8-Mar-2007_crop.jpg)
Italians in the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
often called anyone who lived outside of their country a barbarian. As an example, there is the last chapter of
The Prince
''The Prince'' ( it, Il Principe ; la, De Principatibus) is a 16th-century political treatise written by Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli as an instruction guide for new princes and royals. The general theme of ''The ...
by
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli ( , , ; 3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527), occasionally rendered in English as Nicholas Machiavel ( , ; see below), was an Italian diplomat, author, philosopher and historian who lived during the Renaissance. ...
, "Exhortatio ad Capesendam Italiam in Libertatemque a Barbaris Vinsicandam" (in English: Exhortation to take Italy and free her from the barbarians) in which he appeals to
Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino
Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici (; 12 September 1492 – 4 May 1519) was the ruler of Florence from 1516 until his death in 1519. He was also Duke of Urbino during the same period. His daughter Catherine de' Medici became Queen Consort of France ...
to unite Italy and stop the "barbarian invasions" led by other European rulers, such as
Charles VIII and
Louis XII
Louis XII (27 June 14621 January 1515), was King of France from 1498 to 1515 and King of Naples from 1501 to 1504. The son of Charles, Duke of Orléans, and Maria of Cleves, he succeeded his 2nd cousin once removed and brother in law at the tim ...
, both of France, and
Ferdinand II of Aragon
Ferdinand II ( an, Ferrando; ca, Ferran; eu, Errando; it, Ferdinando; la, Ferdinandus; es, Fernando; 10 March 1452 – 23 January 1516), also called Ferdinand the Catholic (Spanish: ''el Católico''), was King of Aragon and Sardinia from ...
.
Spanish sea captain
Francisco de Cuellar
Francisco de Cuéllar (Valladolid, Spain, 1562) was a Spanish sea captain who sailed with the Spanish Armada in 1588 and was wrecked on the coast of Ireland. He gave a remarkable account of his experiences in the fleet and on the run in Ireland. ...
, who sailed with the
Spanish Armada
The Spanish Armada (a.k.a. the Enterprise of England, es, Grande y Felicísima Armada, links=no, lit=Great and Most Fortunate Navy) was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aris ...
in 1588, used the term 'savage' ('salvaje') to describe the
Irish people
The Irish ( ga, Muintir na hÉireann or ''Na hÉireannaigh'') are an ethnic group and nation native to the island of Ireland, who share a common history and culture. There have been humans in Ireland for about 33,000 years, and it has been c ...
.
Marxist use of "Barbarism"
In her 1916 anti-war pamphlet ''
The Crisis of German Social Democracy'',
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
theorist
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg (; ; pl, Róża Luksemburg or ; 5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a Polish and naturalised-German revolutionary socialist, Marxist philosopher and anti-war activist. Successively, she was a member of the Proletariat party, ...
writes:
Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to Socialism or regression into Barbarism.
Luxemburg attributed it to
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ,["Engels"](_blank)
'' Michael Löwy
Michael Löwy (born 6 May 1938) is a French-Brazilian Marxist sociologist and philosopher. He is emeritus research director in social sciences at the CNRS (French National Center of Scientific Research) and lectures at the ''École des hautes ...
– Engels had not used the term "Barbarism" but a less resounding formulation: ''If the whole of modern society is not to perish, a revolution in the mode of production and distribution must take place.'' The case has been made that Luxemburg had remembered a passage from ''
The Erfurt Program'', written in 1892 by
Karl Kautsky
Karl Johann Kautsky (; ; 16 October 1854 – 17 October 1938) was a Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theorist. Kautsky was one of the most authoritative promulgators of orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels in ...
, and mistakenly attributed it to Engels:
As things stand today capitalist civilization cannot continue; we must either move forward into socialism or fall back into barbarism.
Luxemburg went on to explain what she meant by "Regression into Barbarism": "A look around us at this moment
.e., 1916 Europeshows what the regression of bourgeois society into Barbarism means. This World War is a regression into Barbarism. The triumph of Imperialism leads to the annihilation of civilization. At first, this happens sporadically for the duration of a modern war, but then when the period of unlimited wars begins it progresses toward its inevitable consequences. Today, we face the choice exactly as Friedrich Engels foresaw it a generation ago: either the triumph of Imperialism and the collapse of all civilization as in ancient Rome, depopulation, desolation, degeneration – a great cemetery. Or the victory of Socialism, that means the conscious active struggle of the International Proletariat against Imperialism and its method of war."
Modern popular culture
Modern popular culture contains such fantasy barbarians as
Conan the Barbarian
Conan the Barbarian (also known as Conan the Cimmerian) is a fictional sword and sorcery hero who originated in pulp magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, films (including '' Conan the Barbarian'' and '' Conan the Destroyer'') ...
.
In such fantasy, the negative connotations traditionally associated with "Barbarian" are often inverted. For example, "
The Phoenix on the Sword
"The Phoenix on the Sword" is one of the original short story, short stories about Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Cimmerian written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in ''Weird Tales'' magazine in December 1932. The tale, in ...
" (1932), the first of
Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906June 11, 1936) was an American writer. He wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He is well known for his character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subge ...
's "Conan" series, is set soon after the "Barbarian" protagonist had forcibly seized the turbulent kingdom of
Aquilonia from King Numedides, whom he strangled upon his throne. The story is clearly slanted to imply that the kingdom greatly benefited by power passing from a decadent and tyrannical hereditary monarch to a strong and vigorous Barbarian usurper.
See also
*
Berserker
In the Old Norse written corpus, berserker were those who were said to have fought in a trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the modern English word '' berserk'' (meaning "furiously violent or out of control"). Berserkers ...
*
Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism in social science and anthropology—as well as in colloquial English discourse—means to apply one's own culture or ethnicity as a frame of reference to judge other cultures, practices, behaviors, beliefs, and people, instead of ...
*
Hannibal
Hannibal (; xpu, 𐤇𐤍𐤁𐤏𐤋, ''Ḥannibaʿl''; 247 – between 183 and 181 BC) was a Carthaginian general and statesman who commanded the forces of Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Puni ...
*
Ethnography
Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...
*
Ethnology
Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural anthropology, cultural, social anthropolo ...
*
Mleccha
Mleccha (from Vedic Sanskrit ', meaning "non-Vedic", "foreigner" or "barbarian") is a Sanskrit term, initially referring to those of an incomprehensible speech, later foreign or barbarous invaders as contra-distinguished from elite groups.
The ...
*
Nemets
Because of Germany's long history before 1871 as a non-united region of distinct tribes and states, there are many widely varying names of Germany in different languages, more so than for any other European nation. For example, in the German ...
*
Skræling
''Skræling'' (Old Norse and Icelandic: ''skrælingi'', plural ''skrælingjar'') is the name the Norse Greenlanders used for the peoples they encountered in North America (Canada and Greenland). In surviving sources, it is first applied to the ...
*
Stateless societies
A stateless society is a society that is not governed by a state. In stateless societies, there is little concentration of authority; most positions of authority that do exist are very limited in power and are generally not permanently held p ...
References
Notes
Bibliography
*
Beckwith, Christopher I.
Christopher I. Beckwith (born October 23, 1945) is an American philologist and distinguished professor in the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
He has a B.A. in Chinese from Ohio State Univer ...
(2009): ''Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present''. Princeton: Princeton University Press. .
* Fiskesjö, Magnus "The animal other: Re-naming the barbarians in 20th-century China," Social Text 29.4 (2011) (No. 109, Special Issue, "China and the Human"), pp. 57–79. See: http://socialtext.dukejournals.org/content/29/4_109/57.abstract
*
Schafer, Edward H. ''The Golden Peaches of Samarkand''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. .
*
Wu, K. C. (1982). ''The Chinese Heritage''. New York: Crown Publishers. .
Further reading
*
*Hall, E. (1989). ''Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition through Tragedy''. Oxford, NY: Clarendon.
*Losemann, V. (2006). "''Barbarians"'' (H. Cancik & H. Schneider, Eds.; C. F. Salazar, Trans.). Retrieved July 18, 2020, from Brill's New Pauly. http://dx.doi.org.ccl.idm.oclc.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e212470 doi: 9789004122598, 20110510
External links
*
{{Authority control
Cultural concepts
Stereotypes
Stock characters
Warriors
Greek words and phrases
Exonyms