The ancient Greeks invented a whole bunch of important stuff: democracy, tragedy, philosophy (if you ignore India and China, which you shouldn’t), and more besides. Perhaps that’s why they were so contemptuous of non-Greek peoples. To Greek ears, the languages of Egyptians, Celts, and Phoenicians sounded like meaningless babbling: ba-ba-ba. In time they came to call the speakers of these languages – that is, all non-Greeks – barbaros.
It wasn’t meant as a compliment. The Hellenes sa...
