 The term "Berber" is a variation of the Greek original word "barbaros" ("barbarian"), earlier in history applied by Romans specifically to their northern hostile neighbours from Germania (modern Germany) and Celts, Iberians, Gauls, Goths and Thracians.Among its oldest written attestations, "Berber" appears as an ethnonym in the 1st century AD "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea".Despite these early manuscripts, certain modern scholars have argued that the term only emerged around 900 AD in the writings of Arab genealogists, with Maurice Lenoir positing an 8th or 9th-century date of appearance.