Product Code Database
A barbarian is a person or tribe of people that is perceived to be primitive, savage and warlike. Many cultures have referred to other cultures as barbarians, sometimes out of misunderstanding and sometimes out of prejudice.
A "barbarian" may also be an individual reference to an aggressive, brutal, cruel, and insensitive person, particularly one who is also dim-witted, Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, 1972, p. 149, Simon & Schuster Publishing. while cultures, customs and practices adopted by peoples and countries perceived to be primitive may be referred to as " barbaric".International Society for Human Rights, Abolish Stoning and Barbaric Punishment Worldwide!, accessed on 16 August 2024
The term originates from the (; βάρβαροι ). In ancient Greece, the Greeks used the term not only for those who did not speak Greek language and follow classical Greek customs, but also for Greek populations on the fringe of the Greek world with peculiar dialects. In ancient Rome, the Romans adapted and applied the term to tribal non-Romans such as the Germanic peoples, Celts, Iberians, Helvetii, Thracians, Illyrians, and Sarmatians. In the early modern period and sometimes later, the Byzantine Greeks used it for the Turkish people in a clearly pejorative manner.Εκδοτική Αθηνών, ο Ελληνισμός υπό ξένη κυριαρχία: Τουρκοκρατία, Λατινοκρατία, 1980, p. 34 .Justin Marozzi, The Way of Herodotus: Travels with the Man who Invented History, 2010, pp. 311–315.
The Greek word was borrowed into Arabic as well, under the form بربر (), and used as an exonym by the Arab invaders to refer to the indigenous peoples of North Africa, known in English as Amazigh or Berbers, with the latter thereby being a cognate of the word "barbarian".
Historically, the term barbarian has seen widespread use. Many peoples have dismissed alien cultures and even rival civilizations, because they were unrecognizably strange. For instance, the nomadic Turkic peoples north of the Black Sea, including the Pechenegs and the Kipchaks, were called barbarians by the Byzantine Greeks.
The Greeks used the term barbarian for all non-Greek-speaking people, including the Egyptians, Persian people, Medes and Phoenicians, emphasizing their otherness. According to Greek writers, this was because the language they spoke sounded to Greeks like gibberish represented by the sounds "bar..bar..;" the alleged root of the word , which is an echomimetic or Onomatopoeia word. In various occasions, the term was also used by Greeks, especially the , to deride other Greek tribes and states (such as , , and Aeolic-speakers) and also fellow Athenians in a pejorative and politically motivated manner.Siculus Diodorus, Ludwig August Dindorf, Diodori Bibliotheca historica – Volume 1 – Page 671 The term also carried a cultural dimension to its dual meaning.Plutarch's "Life of Pyrrhos" records his apprehensive remark on seeing a Roman army taking the field against him in disciplined order: "These are not barbarians." Foreigners and Barbarians (adapted from Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks) , The American Forum for Global Education, 2000. "The status of being a foreigner, as the Greeks understood the term does not permit any easy definition. Primarily it signified such peoples as the Persians and Egyptians, whose languages were unintelligible to the Greeks, but it could also be used of Greeks who spoke in a different dialect and with a different accent ... Prejudice toward Greeks on the part of Greeks was not limited to those who lived on the fringes of the Greek world. The Boeotians, inhabitants of central Greece, whose credentials were impeccable, were routinely mocked for their stupidity and gluttony. Ethnicity is a fluid concept even at the best of times. When it suited their purposes, the Greeks also divided themselves into Ionians and Dorians. The distinction was emphasized at the time of the Peloponnesian War, when the Ionian Athenians fought against the Dorian Spartans. The Spartan general Brasidas even taxed the Athenians with cowardice on account of their Ionian lineage. In other periods of history the Ionian-Dorian divide carried much less weight."
Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. Athens: Its Rise and Fall. Kessinger Publishing, 2004. , pp. 9–10. "Whether the Pelasgi were anciently a foreign or Grecian tribe, has been a subject of constant and celebrated discussion. Herodotus, speaking of some settlements held to be Pelaigic, and existing in his time, terms their language 'barbarous;' but Mueller, nor with argument insufficient, considers that the expression of the historian would apply only to a peculiar dialect; and the hypothesis is sustained by another passage in Herodotus, in which he applies to certain Ionian dialects the same term as that with which he stigmatizes the language of the Pelasgic settlements. In corroboration of Mueller's opinion, we may also observe, that the 'barbarous-tongued' is an epithet applied by Homer to the Carians, and is rightly construed by the ancient critics as denoting a dialect mingled and unpolished, certainly not foreign. Nor when the Agamemnon of Sophocles upbraids Teucer with 'his barbarous tongue,' would any scholar suppose that Teucer is upbraided with not speaking Greek; he is upbraided with speaking Greek inelegantly and rudely. It is clear that they who continued with the least adulteration a language in its earliest form, would seem to utter a strange and unfamiliar jargon to ears accustomed to its more modern construction."
The verb βαρβαρίζω ( barbarízō) in ancient Greek meant to behave or talk like a barbarian, or to hold with the barbarians. βαρβαρίζω, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
Plato ( Statesman 262de) rejected the Greek–barbarian dichotomy as a logical absurdity on just such grounds: dividing the world into Greeks and non-Greeks told one nothing about the second group. Yet Plato used the term barbarian frequently in his seventh letter. In Homer's works, the term appeared only once ( Iliad 2.867), in the form βαρβαρόφωνος (barbarophonos, ‘of incomprehensible speech’), used of the Carians fighting for Troy during the Trojan War. In general, the concept of barbaros did not figure largely in archaic literature before the 5th century BC.Hall, Jonathan. Hellenicity, p. 111, . "There is at the elite level at least no hint during the archaic period of this sharp dichotomy between Greek and Barbarian or the derogatory and the stereotypical representation of the latter that emerged so clearly from the 5th century." It has been suggested that the ‘barbarophonoi’ in the Iliad signifies not those who spoke a non-Greek language but simply those who spoke Greek badly.Hall, Jonathan. Hellenicity, p. 111, . "Given the relative familiarity of the Karians to the Greeks, it has been suggested that barbarophonoi in the Iliad signifies not those who spoke a non-Greek language but simply those who spoke Greek badly."
A change occurred in the connotations of the word after the Greco-Persian Wars in the first half of the 5th century BC. Here a hasty coalition of Greeks defeated the vast Persian Empire. Indeed, in the Greek of this period 'barbarian' is often used expressly to refer to Persians, who were enemies of the Greeks in this war.Tsetskhladze, Gocha R. Ancient Greeks West and East, 1999, p. 60, . "a barbarian from a distinguished nation which given the political circumstances of the time might well mean a Persian."
A word barbara- (बर्बर) is also found in the Sanskrit of ancient India, with the primary meaning of "cruel" and also "stammering" (बड़बड़), implying someone with an unfamiliar language. Barbara (entry) SpokenSanskrit.deS Apte (1920), Apte English–Sanskrit Dictionary, "Fool" entry, 3rd ed., Pune A Sanskrit–English Dictionary: Etymologically and Philologically Arranged with Special Reference to Cognate Indo-European Languages, Monier Monier-Williams (1898), Ernst Leumann, Carl Cappeller, pub. Asian Educational Services (Google Books) The Greek word barbaros is related to Sanskrit barbaras (stammering).Onions, C.T. (1966), edited by, The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, page 74, The Clarendon Press, Oxford. This Indo-European root is also found in Latin balbutire / balbus for "stammer / stammering" (leading to Italian balbettare, Spanish balbucear and French balbutier) and Czech brblat "to stammer". Barbarian, Etymology Dictionary, Douglas Harper (2015) The verb baṛbaṛānā in both contemporary Hindi (बड़बड़ाना) as well as Urdu (بڑبڑانا) means 'to babble, to speak gibberish, to rave incoherently'. बड़बड़ाना Wiktionary
In Aramaic, Old Persian and Arabic context, the root refers to "babble confusedly". It appears as barbary or in Old French barbarie, itself derived from the Arabic Barbar, Berbers, which is an ancient Arabic term for the North African inhabitants west of Egypt. The Arabic word might be ultimately from Greek barbaria. Barbary, Etymology Dictionary, Douglas Harper (2015)
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 such as Thrace and Taurica (Crimea), while , Phrygians and Carians came from Asia Minor. Aristotle ( Politics 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 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,See in particular Ralph W. Mathison, Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul: Strategies for Survival in an Age of Transition (Austin) 1993, pp. 1–6, 39–49; Gerhart B. Ladner, "On Roman attitudes towards barbarians in late antiquity" Viator 77 (1976), pp. 1–25. when and Catholicos were appointed to sees connected to cities among the "civilized" gentes barbaricae such as in Armenia or Persia, whereas bishops were appointed to supervise entire peoples among the less settled.
Eventually the term found a hidden meaning through the folk etymology of Cassiodorus (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".Arno Borst. Medieval Worlds: Barbarians, Heretics and Artists in the Middle Ages. London: Polity, 1991, p. 3.
However, the disparaging Hellenic stereotype of barbarians did not totally dominate Hellenic attitudes. Xenophon (died 354 B.C.), for example, wrote the Cyropaedia, a laudatory fictionalised account of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire, effectively a text. In his Anabasis, Xenophon's accounts of the Persians and other non-Greeks whom he knew or encountered show few traces of the stereotypes.
In Plato's Protagoras, Prodicus of Ceos calls "barbarian" the Aeolic Greek dialect that Pittacus of Mytilene spoke.Plato, Protagoras 341c
Aristotle makes the difference between Greeks and barbarians one of the central themes of his book on Politics, and quotes Euripides approvingly, "Tis meet that Greeks should rule barbarians".Aristot. Pol. 1.1252b
The renowned orator Demosthenes (384–322 B.C.) made derogatory comments in his speeches, using the word "barbarian".
In the Bible New Testament, St. Paul (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 1:14), and he also uses it to characterise one who merely speaks a different language ( 1 Corinthians 14:11). In the Acts of the Apostles, the people of Malta, who were kind to Paul and his companions who had been shipwrecked off their coast, are called barbarians (Acts 28:2).
About a hundred years after Paul's time, Lucian – a native of Samosata, in the former kingdom of Commagene, which had been absorbed by the Roman Empire and made part of the province of Syria – 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-speaking population – who were likely called "barbarians by later Hellenistic, Greek language settlers", and might have eventually taken up this appellation themselves. Harmon, A. M. "Lucian of Samosata: Introduction and Manuscripts." in Lucian, Works. Loeb Classical Library (1913)Keith Sidwell, introduction to Lucian: Chattering Courtesans and Other Sardonic Sketches (Penguin Classics, 2005) p. xii
The term retained its standard usage in the Greek language throughout the Middle Ages; Byzantine Greeks used it widely until the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, (later named the Byzantine Empire) in the 15th century (1453 with the fall of capital city Constantinople).
Cicero (106–43 BC) described the mountain area of inner Sardinia 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" (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 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 comments, the sculpture conveys the message that "they knew how to die, barbarians that they were".H. W. Janson, "History of Art: A survey of the major visual arts from the dawn of history to the present day", p. 141. H. N. Abrams, 1977.
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 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. 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.
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,"Robert Morrison, The Dictionary of the Chinese Language, 3 vols. (Macao: East India Company Press, 1815), 1:61 and 586–587. "ordinary others,"Liu Xiaoyuan, Frontier Passages: Ethnopolitics and the Rise of Chinese Communism, 1921–1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), 10–11. Liu believes the Chinese in early China did not originally think of Yi as a derogatory term. "wild tribes,"James Legge, Shangshu, "Tribute of Yu" from http://ctext.org/shang-shu/tribute-of-yu "uncivilized tribes,"Victor Mair, Wandering on the way : early Taoist tales and parables of Chuang Tzu (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998),315. and so forth.
Shang dynasty (1600–1046 BC) oracles and bronze inscriptions first recorded specific Chinese exonyms for foreigners, often in contexts of warfare or tribute. King Wu Ding (r. 1250–1192 BC), for instance, fought with the Guifang 鬼方, Di 氐, and Qiang 羌 "barbarians."
During the Spring and Autumn period (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."Pu Muzhou (2005). Enemies of Civilization: Attitudes toward Foreigners in Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China. SUNY Press. p. 45. These Four Barbarians 四夷 "Four Barbarians", most "probably the names of ethnic groups originally,"Creel (1970), 197. were the Yi or Dongyi 東夷 "eastern barbarians," Man or Nanman 南蠻 "southern barbarians," Rong or Xirong 西戎 "western barbarians," and Di or Beidi 北狄 "northern barbarians." The Russian anthropologist Mikhail Kryukov 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 Huaxia.Jettmar, Karl (1983). "The Origins of Chinese Civilization: Soviet Views." In Keightley, David N., ed. The Origins of Chinese civilization. p. 229. University of California Press.
The Chinese classics 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.Creel (1970), 198.
This word Yi has both specific references, such as to Huaiyi 淮夷 peoples in the Huai River region, and generalized references to "barbarian; foreigner; non-Chinese." Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage translates Yi as "Ancient barbarian tribe on east border, any border or foreign tribe."Lin Yutang (1972), Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage, Chinese University Press. The sinologist Edwin G. Pulleyblank 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.Pulleyblank, E. G., (1983). "The Chinese and Their Neighbors in Prehistoric and Early Historic Times." In Keightley, David N., ed. The Origins of Chinese civilization. p. 440. University of California Press.
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.Creel (1970), 59–60.
In a somewhat related example, Mencius believed that Confucian practices were universal and timeless, and thus followed by both Hua and Yi, "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." Mencius,D.C Lau tran. (Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1970),128.
The prominent (121 CE) Shuowen Jiezi 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.Xu Shen 許慎, Shuowen Jieji 說文解字 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1963), 213, 78.
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, "all under heaven." The world was perceived as one homogenous unity named "great community" ( Great Unity) The Middle Kingdom China, 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.Dikötter, Frank (1990), "Group Definition and the Idea of 'Race' in Modern China (1793–1949)," Ethnic and Racial Studies 13:3, 421.
According to the Pakistani academic M. Shahid Alam, "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."Alam, M. Shahid (2003), "Articulating Group Differences: A Variety of Autocentrisms," Science & Society 67.2, 214.
Two millennia before the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss wrote The Raw and the Cooked, the Chinese differentiated "raw" and "cooked" categories of barbarian peoples who lived in China. The shufan 熟番 "cooked food barbarians" are sometimes interpreted as Sinicized, and the shengfan 生番 "raw food barbarians" as not Sinicized.An alternative interpretation emphasizing power and state control as the main distinction at play, rather than the degree of cultural assimilation, is offered in Fiskesjö, Magnus. "On the 'Raw' and the 'Cooked' barbarians of imperial China." Inner Asia 1.2 (1999), 139–68. The Liji gives this description.
The people of those five regions – the Middle states, and the Rong, Yi (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 Yi. 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 Rong. They had their hair unbound, and wore skins. Some of them did not eat grain-food. Those on the north were called Di. They wore skins of animals and birds, and dwelt in caves. Some of them did not eat grain-food.Legge, James (1885) The Li ki, Clarendon Press, part 1, p. 229.
Dikötter explains the close association between nature and nurture. "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."Dikötter (1992), pp. 8–9.
Some Warring States period 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."D. C. Lau (1970), p. 103. 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."Dikötter (1992), p. 18.
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 wrote, "the influence on China of the great fact of alien conquest under the Liao-Jin-Yuan dynasties is just beginning to be explored."Fairbank, 127. 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.Fairbank, 146–149. 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."Zhou Songfang, "Lun Liu Ji de Yimin Xintai" (On Liu Ji's Mentality as a Dweller of Subjugated Empire) in Xueshu Yanjiu no.4 (2005), 112–117.
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.
The politician, historian, and diplomat K. C. Wu 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."Wu, K. C. 1982. The Chinese Heritage. New York: Crown Publishers. . pp. 106–108 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."Wu, 109 K. C. Wu says the modern character 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.Wu, 107–108 However, differing from K. C. Wu, the scholar Wu Qichang believes that the earliest oracle bone script for yi 夷 was used interchangeably with shi "corpse". Hanyu Da Cidian (1993), vol. 3, p. 577. 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'."Hill, John (2009), Through the Jade Gate to Rome: A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty, First to Second Centuries CE, BookSurge, , p. 123.
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, Christopher I. (2009). Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Princeton University Press. . p. 356. Furthermore, "The entire construct is, appropriately enough, best summed up by popular European and American fiction and film treatments such as Conan the Barbarian." Also see "The Barbarians" epilogue, pp. 320–362. 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."Beckwith (2009), pp. 361–2. The author describes his belief in religious terms; following his "enlightenment on this issue", he says no scholar who used the word barbarian "needs to be blamed for such sins of the past".
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 from Greek barbar-.Beckwith, 357. "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 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."For instance, Far East Chinese-English Dictionary "barbarians; savages" (1992) p. 1410; "savage; Shanghai Jiaotong Chinese-English Dictionary "barbarian", (1993) p. 2973; ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary "barbarians" (2003), p. 1131. 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 (2009), pp. 356–7.
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."Beckwith (2009), 358. Although Beckwith does not cite any examples, the Swedish sinologist Bernhard Karlgren edited two dictionaries: Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese (1923) and Grammata Serica Recensa (1957). Compare Karlgrlen's translations of the siyi "four barbarians":
The third problem involves Tang dynasty 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."Beckwith, 360. 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."Ramsey, Robert S. (1987). The Languages of China, p. 160. Princeton University Press.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'."Beckwith (2009), 360
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."Creel (1970), 196. 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.".
The term has also been used to refer to people from Barbary, a region encompassing most of North Africa. 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 language ajam "non-Arabic speakers; non-Arabs; (especially) Persian people."Alam, M. Shahid (2003), "Articulating Group Differences: A Variety of Autocentrisms", Science & Society 67.2, 206.
The Incas of South America used the term "purum awqa" for all peoples living outside the rule of their empire (see Promaucaes).
European and European American colonists frequently referred to Native Americans as "savages".Franklin, Benjamin (first published 1791). The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Chapter XIX. Online version: [22] "During his absence the French and savages had taken Fort George, on the frontier of that province, and the savages had massacred many of the garrison after capitulation...."
Spanish sea captain Francisco de Cuellar, who sailed with the Spanish Armada in 1588, used the term 'savage' ('salvaje') to describe the Irish people.
Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to Socialism or regression into Barbarism.Luxemburg attributed her statement to Friedrich Engels, but as was shown by Michael Löwy, Engels had used not 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."Friedrich Engels, "Anti-Dühring" (1878), quoted in Michael Löwy, "Philosophy of Praxis & Rosa Luxemburg" in "Viewpoint", Online Issue No. 125, November 2, 2012 The case has been made that Luxemburg had remembered a passage from the "Erfurt Program", written in 1892 by Karl Kautsky, 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 i.e., shows 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, degenerationa great cemetery. Or the victory of Socialism, that means the conscious active struggle of the International Proletariat against Imperialism and its method of war.Luxemburg's quote inspired the naming of the French unorthodox Marxist group Socialisme ou Barbarie led by Cornelius Castoriadis formed in 1948, and the Marxist scholar István Mészáros in his 2001 book Socialism or Barbarism: From the "American Century" to the Crossroads.
Barbarians appear throughout the Civilization series, spawning on the map to attack exploring units and loot cities.
Notes
Bibliography
|
|
