From: psperson@old.netcom.invalid   
      
   On Thu, 15 Jan 2026 21:23:40 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D´Oliveiro   
    wrote:   
      
   >On Thu, 15 Jan 2026 11:02:11 -0500 (EST), Scott Dorsey wrote:   
   >>   
   >> On Thu, 15 Jan 2026 01:35:43 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:   
   >>   
   >>> Reading a book on the early history of Mesopotamia just made me sad.   
   >>> The first city-states in the world, the beginnings of civilization,   
   >>> and they spent centuries warring against each other.   
   >>>   
   >> Sadly, this is the story of so many places.  China is one of the most   
   >> fascinating.   
   >   
   >China at least was able to achieve centuries-long episodes of   
   >largely-peaceful conditions at a time -- most of the strife came from   
   >foreign invasions. To the point where they automatically assumed that   
   >foreigners must be “barbarians”.   
      
   I actually ran into a note in a high-level super-intellectual   
   commentary the other day identifying the Greek for "barbarian" as   
   meaning "talks nonsense".   
      
   This is a sort-of confirmation of an earlier claim that, when they   
   first started trading with Semites, those Semites spoke a language   
   that use "bar" where Arabic uses "ibn" and Hebrew "ben", and called   
   them "barbarians" meaning "people who say 'bar' a lot".   
   --    
   "Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,   
   Who evil spoke of everyone but God,   
   Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)