''Mixobarbaroi'' (, , "semi-/mixed/half

barbarians A barbarian is a person or tribe of people that is perceived to be primitive, savage and warlike. Many cultures have referred to other cultures as barbarians, sometimes out of misunderstanding and sometimes out of prejudice. A "barbarian" may ...

") was an

ethnographical Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

term first used in

Classical Greece Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years (the 5th and 4th centuries BC) in ancient Greece,The "Classical Age" is "the modern designation of the period from about 500 B.C. to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C." ( Thomas R. Mar ...

by authors to denote people who lived in the frontiers of the ''

oikoumene In ancient Greece, the term ''oecumene'' (British English, UK) or ''ecumene'' (American English, US; ) denoted the known, inhabited, or habitable world. In classical antiquity, Greek antiquity, it referred to the portions of the world known to li ...

'', and had qualities of both the civilized peoples and the barbarians, as seen in the works of

Euripides Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to ...

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

and

Xenophon Xenophon of Athens (; ; 355/354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian. At the age of 30, he was elected as one of the leaders of the retreating Ancient Greek mercenaries, Greek mercenaries, the Ten Thousand, who had been ...

. It would later come to describe mixed Greeks or other people mixed with "barbarians" in the Greek lands of cultural plurality. In the

dialogue ''Menexenus'', a group of "barbarians" considered themselves Greeks, but were not full-blooded Greeks, thus only "''mixobarbaroi''".

describes the people of Cedreiae in

Asia Minor Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

, who were allies to

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

, as "''mixobarbaroi''", meaning those who were bound to treaties with Athens but were not Athenian. After the

Christianization Christianization (or Christianisation) is a term for the specific type of change that occurs when someone or something has been or is being converted to Christianity. Christianization has, for the most part, spread through missions by individu ...

of the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

and the first Christian emperor

Constantine I Constantine I (27 February 27222 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was a Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337 and the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. He played a Constantine the Great and Christianity, pivotal ro ...

, the term is used to denote non-Romans of Christian faith living in the frontiers bound by treaties to the emperor, thus being of half-barbarian stock opposed to ordinary "barbarians" who were either non-civilized, pagan or not living in the frontiers. In

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

times this term was used by authors chiefly in the 11th and 12th centuries to denote ethnically and linguistically mixed populations, such as those that existed in the Danube provinces.

Anna Comnena Anna Komnene (; 1 December 1083 – 1153), commonly Latinized as Anna Comnena, was a Byzantine Greek historian. She is the author of the '' Alexiad'', an account of the reign of her father, Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos. Her work constit ...

refers to the people of

Paristrion Paristrion (), or Paradounabon/Paradounabis (), which is preferred in official documents, was a Byzantine province covering the southern bank of the Lower Danube (Moesia Inferior) in the 11th and 12th centuries.. Although Byzantine authors use t ...

as "''mixobarbaroi''", distinguished from the Scythians whom they nevertheless shared language with. The term also came to be used by many contemporary authors in the aftermath of the Turkish Invasions of Anatolia, primarily in reference to the offspring of Turkish men with native Christian women. Speros Vryonis has commented that the 'Mixovarvaroi' were considerable in number by the early 12th century and, whilst evidence suggests that these offspring often spoke Greek as well as Turkish, the majority were of the Muslim faith and considered themselves to be Turks. Over time this phenomenon played a part in the reduction of the Christian population and the Islamification and Turkification of Anatolia: "''In the long run their (mixovarvaroi) appearance in Anatolia resulted in a process that favoured the growth of the Muslim population at the expense of the Christian population, because Muslim society dominated politically and militarily. It is interesting, but unprofitable, to speculate about what would have happened to the Anatolian mixovarvaroi under different political circumstances."'' The term mixo-barbarous refers to the writing language of

Modern Greek Modern Greek (, or , ), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the language sometimes referred to ...

that was characterized with Hellenic phrases, ancient syntax and overall ancient mimic but combined with modern and foreign etymology applied to the vulgar dialect used by Greeks during and after the fall of

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

References

Greek words and phrases Exonyms Demonyms Hellenistic period Multiracial affairs in Europe {{AncientGreek-lang-stub