Barbarian was a derogatory name. An insult. The Greeks used the word for all those people living beyond their frontiers. It was in imitation of the foreigners' incomprehensible, ba-ba-babbling way of talking. Later, the Romans and their heirs, applied the word to European and Asian races living outside their empires who did not inhabit sophisticated urban settlements. These Barbarians were viewed as wild, savage people. From their archetypal appearance, the Latins derived their word for a beard, barba.