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New Michael Martinez essay at MERP.COM

October 16, 2004 at 20:50:14

What is a barbarian? There seem to be several functional definitions for the term. A barbarian might be someone who acts without any sort of "civilized" restraint -- someone who lives outside the law. A barbarian may be someone who is brutal, savage, cruel (but otherwise civilized). A barbarian may simply be an unsophisticated foreigner, a stranger to civilization in general.

In today's usage, we tend to restrict our application of the word to imaginary uncivilized peoples or to historical peoples who invaded sedentary, civilized cultures: e.g., the Germans, the Mongols, and the Turks were all barbarians in that sense. They did not build cities of their own until they had invaded the rich civilizations with whom they were neighbors. We no longer use the word "barbarian" to refer to outsiders or foreigners (particularly those who do not live in cities).

It is a curious fact that Tolkien never created an Elvish word with the meaning of "barbarian" in the sense of "foreigner", "outsider", "non-city dweller". The closest he came was an early etymology for the word "glam" (translated in The Hobbit as "foe", from Glamdring, the foe-hammer). Originally, a "glam" was a "barbarous host" (referring to the Orcs).

Our word, "barbarian", comes ultimately from the Greek language and originally meant something like "strange, foreign". Quenya offers a word, ettelëa, meaning "foreign". We could combine it with nêr, "man", to produce a word (ettelëanêr) meaning, literally, "foreign man".

But I think it is doubtful Tolkien envisioned his Elves ever using such a word -- not in the way we use "barbarian" today. For one thing, Quenya quickly became a language of Aman, where there were no real foreigners. The Eldar were divided into three kindreds (Vanyar, Noldor, and Teleri) but they did not regard each other as foreigners. They shared a common history and cultural base.

When the Noldor returned in exile to Middle-earth, they might have seemed like foreigners to the Sindar, but the Sindar welcomed the Noldor as long-lost kin and newfound allies in the war against Morgoth. The Noldor and Sindar did not express toward each other that sense of estrangement one conveys in labeling a neighbor as a foreigner or barbarian. One of the chief reasons, undoubtedly, must have been the rapid assimilation the two peoples made into an almost unified culture. While some regions of Beleriand and neighboring lands remained free of the Noldor, the Noldor became very Sindarinized, just as they tended to Noldorinize those Sindar who dwelt close to or among them.

Read the full article at MERP.COM.