barbarie

Forms

barbarie f (plural barbaries)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin barbaria (“foreign country, barbarity”) (also barbaries),^[2][3][1][4] from barbarus (“foreign, barbarian”),^[3][4] itself taken from Ancient Greek βάρβαρος (bárbaros).^[5][6] Picoche explains the Greek word as imitating unintelligible speech: a barbarian was one who did not speak Greek.^[6] The Latin noun was first used, after the Greeks, of Italy, then of every country outside Greece and Italy, and by extension of rough manners, coarseness, cruelty and faulty language.^[2] Bloch and Wartburg date it to the 14th century, together with barbare and barbarisme, all taken from Latin.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Anglo-Norman Dictionary records barbarie from the third quarter of the 12th century, as a name for the land of the barbarians, the non-Christian countries of North Africa, and in the senses “barbarian, Saracen” and “savagely”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

In Middle French Barbarie named North Africa or any distant foreign land.^[8] As a common noun it is found in 1428 for incomprehensible speech, in a play on the Latin barbara, and in 1425 for a type of cell in the Châtelet prison.^[8]

The modern word dates from 1495 according to the dictionaries of Rey and Robert, taken up with the moral sense of a barbarian’s cruelty and violence.^[2][3][9] From Montaigne (1580) it is the state of a people seen as uncivilised by another: Charron wrote that everyone calls barbarie what is not to his own taste or custom.^[2][4] By extension, from 1690, it covers whatever offends the intellectual and aesthetic norms of a civilisation, coarseness and lack of taste.^[2] In the plural, des barbaries are cruel acts.^[4]

Timeline

• 1150–1175 – Anglo-Norman barbarie “land of the barbarians”.^[7]
• 14th century – Bloch and Wartburg's date for the word.^[5][6]
• 1428 – Used for incomprehensible speech.^[8]
• 1495 – First record of the sense “cruelty”, according to Rey.^[2][3]
• 1580 – Montaigne uses it for the state of an uncivilised people.^[2]
• 1690 – Extended to lack of taste and coarseness.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Lack of civilization, the state of an uncivilised people: retomber dans la barbarie.^[9][10][3]
2. Lack of taste, coarseness, as of language or manners.^[9][11]
3. Cruelty, savagery, inhumanity: un acte de barbarie.^[9][10][12]
4. A cruel, barbarous act.^[10][4]
5. (history) The barbarian world, the countries foreign to the Greeks and Romans and later to Christendom.^[3]

Related words

• barbare
• barbarisme
• barbaresque
• Latin barbaria

Usage notes

With a capital letter, Barbarie is the old name of the countries of North Africa (Barbary), kept in figuier de Barbarie.^[3][1][8]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c d e f g Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d e Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
5. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
6. ^ a b c d Picoche, Jacqueline (1991), Dictionnaire étymologique du français, Paris: Le Robert (Les Usuels du Robert)
7. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ a b c d Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf
9. ^ a b c d Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b c Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
11. ^ Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
12. ^ Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard