2024 Niue Woman Warriors Barbarian 2 oz Silver High Relief Antiqued Gilded Coin

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, while cultures, customs and practices adopted by peoples and countries perceived to be primitive may be referred to as “barbaric”.

In Ancient Greece, the Greeks used the term not only for those who did not speak Greek 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 Germanics, Celts, Iberians, Helvetii, Thracians, Illyrians, and Sarmatians. In the early modern period and sometimes later, the Byzantine Greeks used it for the Turks in a clearly pejorative manner.

The Greek word was borrowed into Arabic as well, under the form (barbar), and used as an exonym by the Arab conquerors 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 in English. 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 Byzantines.