I love discovering obscure words that are new to me. The following word arrived via an article about Proust that a reader of this blog sent me:

abecedarian: (adjective) 1 arranged alphabetically : in abecedarian sequence. 2 rudimentary; elementary : abecedarian technology. noun a person who is just learning; a novice. ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from late Latin abecedarius 'alphabetical' (from the names of the letters a, b, c, d).

It's a great replacement for 'newbie', though somewhat harder to spell.