Years ago, as a child, I caught a double deck government bus from Cardiff to Broadmeadow and then caught another double-deck bus to somewhere near Waratah to watch a Newcastle rugby side play the Barbarians. I don’t know why I did it, but I think I wanted to see why some rugby clubs were called Barbarians.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The question wasn’t answered at the time – but my memory tells me it was a good game.
If you have never been Greek, then the chances are you can call yourself a Barbarian. In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary says a Barbarian, in a few pages of definitions, can be “one not a Greek”.
The reason? I’m getting to it.
I had a letter from a person of Greek descent only a couple of weeks back. He comes from Toowoomba and has a good old Greek nickname, “Jock”. You don’t want to know why.
So, what is a barbarian?
Years ago, the Greeks spoke in such an unusual way — “it’s all Greek to me” — that very few from other countries could understand what they were saying. An exemption seemed to be given to those who were Romans or educated Christians. So the Greeks called upon a word that meant the foreigners stammered. This word passed from Greek into Latin and eventually into English as barbarian.
I don’t think the Greeks implied that the foreigners were rude or savage, although my 1604 dictionary from Robert Cawdrey says a barbarian is “a rude person”. The Greeks simply could not understand what people from elsewhere were saying.
I know a few Scotsmen that I can’t understand, but I would never call them barbarians – not to their faces, anyway.
A barbarian, according to my big dictionary, was originally “one whose language and customs differ from the speaker’s” and then “one not a Greek”.
So, from being a stammerer, a barbarian became one who could not be understood and in time “a wild, uncivilised person” – my dictionary again.
The Roman poet Ovid could probably describe himself as a Barbarian. He once said he was “understood by no one”. I know the feeling.
When Shakespeare, in Othello, spoke of an “erring Barbarian” he was referring to a person who was a native of Barbary.
No doubt, those people from the Barbary Coast are very polite and help
little old ladies cross the street – that sort of thing – even though those countries in North Africa changed their name a few years back.
The generic word eventually lost its capital B. A female barbarian became known as a barbarianese. I don’t think Jane Fonda in the movie Barbarella was a barbarian. From memory, she certainly didn’t help little old ladies cross the street, although
people thought enough of the movie to plan a remake.
The Barbarian rugby players were, and still are, those who were able to play with their enemies in social, top-level rugby without the pressure of having to win. They also had to have a good record for sportsmanship.
The Collins Dictionary says a barbarian, among other things, shows no respect for literature.
Prominent author Peter Fitzsimons, who once said he was the only Wallaby ever to have been sent from the field – unfairly, of course – was a Barbarian.
Fitzsimons said one of the books I wrote, My Word, was “wonderful, insightful and fascinating”, but he had probably experienced a heavy night when he said that.
I suppose if someone calls you a barbarian, you could always ask if he is Greek.
lauriebarber.com;
lbword@midcoast.com.au