bari, noun

/ˈbɑːri/
Forms:
baari, baarieShow more Also baari, baarie, barrie, barry, ibari.
Plurals:
baries, baris, or (occasionally) iibari.
Origin:
IsicamthoShow more Township slang (or Isicamtho), perhaps from baar; but see also quotation 1963.
slang
A rural person who is still in the process of being assimilated into urban life; a ‘country bumpkin’, unsophisticated person, or one lacking in astuteness. See also baar. Cf. moegoe, mompara sense 1.
1963 Wilson & Mafeje Langa 21All of them are stigmatized as uncouth countrymen, iibari by the townsmen proper...Ibari..is also associated by some informants with barbarian...After the film of The Barbarians the tsotsis in Johannesburg are said to have taken over the word and applied it to the new generation of country men who are in the process of being absorbed in town...The iibari mostly have at least a little education..but they come from the country and have not yet been assimilated.
a1977 K.M.C. Motsisi in M. Mutloatse Casey & Co. (1978) 65‘Who needs a licence to sell booze or drink. Like needing a licence to buy food and permission to eat it. Those papers are for baaries man,’ Fatty..would have said.
1982 D. Bikitsha in Rand Daily Mail 14 Oct. (Eve) 5If you were a man-about-town and ‘clever’ or ‘fly’ as some of the adjectives of this new slanguage described, you spoke tsotsi taal. If you used the old hackneyed vernaculars you were termed a ‘barry,’ ‘mogo,’ ‘streepkop,’ ‘jackaja,’ ‘kararow’ or plain yokel.
1983 Drum Apr. 10‘The people of Soweto say we are “baris”’...A ‘bari’ is a country bumpkin, a yokel. Somebody who is not with it.
1983 G. Mvubelo in Natal Mercury 8 JuneSome people don’t speak the township lingo. There are the ‘baris’ or the ‘moegies’. They are the dumb ones, who just speak the vernacular.
1987 N. Mathiane in Frontline Oct.–Nov. 34In the street it is either joining the gang (carrying knives, harrassing girls and getting drunk) or be seen as a ‘barrie’ (bum) and be humiliated for not being ‘with it’.
A rural person who is still in the process of being assimilated into urban life; a ‘country bumpkin’, unsophisticated person, or one lacking in astuteness.
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19631987

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slang
Barberton, nounn.baroe, barroe, nounn.
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