Worldviews Hidden Away in Word Etymology: Barbarian & Humanitarian
Most people are aware of the power that words can wield. Understanding this power is a necessity in life. Our ability to “wield” words impacts our relationships, our careers, and shapes our outlook of the world. Something that many people don’t consider, however, is the history of the words we use. Etymology, the study of the origin of words, is of much interest to linguists and historians, and I believe the rest of us can benefit from learning it. We think and express ourselves in words, and every language has its own unique way, with every word having a special and adaptable purpose. This is how it has been for thousands of years. Understanding where the words we choose to employ came from and what they had originally meant can improve our ability to communicate and, more profoundly, broaden our understanding of our own nature.
Many words used in modern English can be traced back to a specific language, time, and place where they were first used. Other words appear in various languages of antiquity so far back, that we cannot possibly determine from where they originated. Humanitarian and Barbarian are among such words. Humanitarian is a word that reflects a major change in the way we view ourselves in regards to nature and spirituality. Barbarian is a word that reflects an ugly trait that every culture needs to overcome but hasn’t as of yet. It reflects the group conformist mentality that ostracizes anyone who is deemed the “other.” Both of these words went through several processes that changed them as centuries came and went. Only by examining their etymology can we understand the progress mankind has made and the metamorphosis of primitive ideas.
Both humanitarian and barbarian went through a process of affixation. At first glance, we see a common suffix of -arian. This suffix forms personal pronouns and indicates a person or thing that advocates for, believes in, or is associated with something. The English suffix -arian is a combination of suffixes -ary and -an. The suffix -an is a Middle English altered version of the Latin suffix -anus in the masculine form (“-an,” Dictionary.com). In English, this suffix occurs typically in adjectives borrowed from Latin, formed from nouns denoting places or persons. It can also denote membership in social classes, etc. (“-an,” Dictionary.com). According to their affixations, both humanitarian and barbarian denote membership of a certain group of people.
Humanitarian and barbarian also serve as both adjectives and nouns. The noun humanitarian is defined as “a philanthropist or a person who professes ethical or theological humanitarianism” (“Humanitarian,” Dictionary.com). The adjective humanitarian is defined as “helping to improve the welfare of people,” “relating to ethical or theological humanitarianism,” or “pertaining to the saving of human lives or to the alleviation of suffering” (“Humanitarian,” Dictionary.com). The noun barbarian is defined as a person “in a savage, primitive state,” “without culture, refinement, or education,” or even “a foreigner” (“Barbarian,” Dictionary.com). The adjective barbarian is defined as “uncivilized; crude; savage” or “foreign; alien” (“Barbarian,” Dictionary.com). The meaning of these words varies immensely from the meanings and purposes of their origin words. This variation did not occur suddenly, but rather through multiple processes that involved borrowing from other languages and derivational affixation.
The word humanitarian has the suffix -arian or two suffixes of -ari and -an depending on how we choose to look at them. If we remove the suffix -arian, we are left with the noun humanit(y) which is still not the root. Humanity is defined as the “human race, condition of being human or the quality of being humane.” (“Humanity,” Dictionary.com) Humanity has another suffix -ity which can be traced back to Latin as well. When we remove the suffix -ity we are left with the root human.
It is a fallacy to continue deconstructing the word until we are left with a prefix of hu- and a root of man. The word human, serving as both adjective and noun, cannot be further deconstructed. Human is defined as a “human being,” or “any individual of the genus Homo, especially a member of the species Homo sapiens” (Harper, “Human”). As an adjective, it stands for “sympathetic, relating to the social aspect of people, or having the nature of people” (Harper, “Human”). The word man, on the other hand, deviates from such meaning. A man is a male adult person. The common meanings of humanitarian, humanity, and human of benevolence and human nature are not definitive of the word man. Unlike humanitarian, humanity, and human, man refers to a specific gender and thus has a boundary that the previously mentioned words lack. The origin of the word man remained close to its Proto-Indo-European root man. The origin of the word human is more complex.
The word human first appears in Middle English as humain and humaigne, borrowed from Old French humain or umain in the 12th century (Harper, “Human”). The Old French humain meant “of or belonging to a man” and, in turn, it was borrowed from Latin humanus meaning “of men, humane, philanthropic” (Harper, “Human”). According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the Latin word comes from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) (dh)ghomon meaning "earthling, earthly being,” as opposed to the gods. It comes from the root dhghem meaning "earth” (Harper, “Human”). It is interesting to note that this directly opposes the PIE ghu-to meaning "poured,” which is believed to be the origin of the word god (Harper,“God”). The PIE word ghomon juxtaposed humans with gods, material earth with spiritual water, and something tangible and concrete with something more abstract. Over time, the word ghomon would morph into human and contrast humans against animals, brutes, or savages. It became something meant to resemble the divine as opposed to the natural.
The word barbarian on the other hand serves the purpose of identifying exactly what one shouldn’t resemble. It establishes a feeling of “the other,” something foreign to a community, something not human. When we examine the word barbarian we can identify its root, barbar with a suffix -ian. The modern English definition of barbarian was preceded by a Middle English definition meaning “a person not living in a Christian country or within a Christian civilization” (Harper, “Barbarian”). It was borrowed from Medieval Latin barbarinus meaning “Berber” or “pagan” (Harper, “Barbarian”). Medieval Latin modified it from the Latin word barbarus meaning “foreigner, savage” (Harper, “Barbarian”). However, this was not an original Latin root. The Romans borrowed many ideas from Ancient Greek culture including the term βάρβαρος or bárbaros, which meant non-Greek and non-Roman (Scythian, Persian, etc.). This is supported by another word derived from the root barbar: βᾰρβᾰρόφωνος (barbaróphōnos) which is defined as “speaking a foreign tongue” (Liddell, 129). After the Persian war, it gained more negative connotations; in one instance the word barbaros is interchanged with “tongueless” (Munson, “Introduction”). Barbaros is considered to be onomatopoeic, mimicking and mocking foreign languages, similar to the English “blah blah.” The word barbara (बर्बर) also appears in Sanskrit meaning “barbarian, non-Aryan, stammering” (Harper, “Barbarian”). It is similar to the Latin root balbus and Czech biblati, meaning “to stammer,” leading many to believe the word has a Proto-Indo-European origin (Harper, “Barbarian”).
Words appear, add on to each other, lose parts, or disappear. This evolution will go on for as long as there are people speaking. The words barbarian and humanitarian had their roots and meanings borrowed and were adjusted every time they appeared in a new language. The continued use of the word barbarian to establish an idea of the primitive, inferior, uncultured “other” in the span of more than two millenniashows the continued resurgence of ethnocentric close-mindedness. The word human, on the other hand, came to juxtapose barbarian or wild, instead of godlike as the original Proto-Indo-European word had, which indicates a significant shift in human ideology. The word human gave rise to the terms: humanity, humanitarian, and even humanitarianism, which developed separate meanings but similar ideas. These words elevate us as something more than our flesh and instincts. They define us as moral and reasonable, which signifies progress.
By Olha Sum
Illustrations done in collaboration with the New Media Artspace at Baruch College. The New Media Artspace is a teaching exhibition space in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts at Baruch College, CUNY. Housed in the Newman Library, the New Media Artspace showcases curated experimental media and interdisciplinary artworks by international artists, students, alumni, and faculty. Special thanks to docent Bryan Campaña for creating artwork for this piece.
Check the New Media Artspace out at http://www.newmediartspace.info/