The Dumb and the Stammerers in Early Irish History

Primitive peoples judge other races strictly by the yardstick of their own virtues and capacities. Those, who do not conform to their customs, are mad or stupid. Those, who cannot communicate with them, are dumb or have an impediment in their speech. If they are obliged to admit that the foreigner with all his defects can do certain things remarkably well, they are more likely to ascribe this to magic than to superior but distinctive capacities. When the newcomers are, like the Spaniards in the New World, the Europeans in the Pacific, so dazzlingly accomplished that it is hard to disparage them, the natives welcome them as supernatural beings more readily than as a more developed race of men. They will change their gods more willingly than their good opinion of themselves as the norm of humanity. The Greek word for people whom they could not understand was βὰρβαρoι or 'stammerers', the Russian word for the Teutons, with whom communication was difficult, was 'nyemets' or 'dumb'. A variant of this word was used by all the other Slavonic peoples. Many less familiar instances of this practice could be collected. These names were retained for centuries after the idea that mankind was divided into many races equally but differently equipped had become familiar

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