• Perhyte@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I believe so, but in addition it is also a “the original meaning of ‘barbarian’ is non-Greek person” joke.

      • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        For the people who don’t get it: To the Greeks (who primarily spoke Greek and Latin,) Germanic and proto European languages (like old English) sounded funny. The Greeks joked that it sounded like “barbar barbar” which is basically the Greek version of “blah blah blah blah”. So the people who spoke those foreign languages got referred to as barbarians.

        It was basically used as a pejorative. It was a way for Greeks to discriminate against non-Greeks.

          • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            It’s technically Proto-Indo-European. PIE is the base language that later developed into most of the European languages. It’s a simple language that evolved into the various European languages as people spread out and groups became more isolated. Basically, as they became more isolated they formed their own unique dialects, which then became distinct languages.

            PIE is believed to be the root language for Spanish, English, French, German, Italian, Hindi, Urdu, and a handful of others.

            • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              Your examples are a bit odd given the context. Spanish, French, and Italian developed from Latin (which you stated the Greeks spoke). English, German, and Scandinavian languages developed from Proto-Germanic. I’m assuming you didn’t mean to imply that Latin wasn’t a PIE language?

            • Justas🇱🇹@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              Yes, except it’s not as simple as you think. It is heavily inflected and has a lot of cases, 8, I think.

              I know this because I speak Lithuanian, which is the oldest living language and the one most similar to PIE.

            • lol3droflxp@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              But is it a language? I only know of Proto Germanic and Proto Indo-European that would be relevant here but I’m not a linguist.

              • irmoz@reddthat.com
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                1 year ago

                proto European languages (like old English)

                No, it’s a category, and the two languages you mentioned would, I assume, fit into that category.

    • RaineV1@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I mainly took it as a joke on all the awful things that happen around Heracles. The DM is stopping the history buff from warning them.

    • DontTreadOnBigfoot@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I took it to mean the DM was going to start throwing all the Herculean labors at them, then have the characters wife accidentally poison him, so that he burns himself alive on his own pyre.

    • Madison420@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It means they speak another language. It’s onomatopoeia for how they heard foreign languages bar bar bar, so they became the barbarians, those that speak bar bar.