semibarbarous en · ADJ
Etymology
From semi- + barbarous.
Meanings
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(not-comparable) Partially barbarous; not fully civilised.
Mr. Arndt, a German and the Government doctor, invited me to stay at his house while in Coupang, and I gladly accepted his offer, as I only intended making a short visit. We at first began speaking French, but he got on so badly that we soon passed insensibly into Malay; and we afterwards held long discussions on literary, scientific, and philosophical questions in that semi-barbarous language, whose deficiencies we made up by the free use of French or Latin words.
1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 290: