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KATHARINA M. WILSON The History ofthe Word Vampire Where does the word vampire comefrom? How old is it? Is it ofTurkish origin? Serbian origin? Bulgarian origin? Hungarian origin? There hasbeen considerable discussion among scholars about when and where the term may have originated. ProfessorKatharina M. Wilson ofthe University ofGeorgia reviews the competing theories and tries to track the first appearances ofthe word in French, German, English, and other languages. For other considerations ofthe possible etymology ofvampire, see Hans Holm Bielfeldt, "Die Wortgeschichte von deutsch 'Vampir' und 'vamp' "in Serta Slavica in Memoriam Aloisii Schmaus (Munich: RudolfTrofenik, 1971): 42-47; andKenneth E. Naylor, "The Source ofthe Word Vampir in Slavic, "Southeastern Europe 10 (1983): 93-98. Both ofthesestudiesarguefora Slavic origin ofthe word. Like the legend of the living dead, so the origin of the word vampire is clouded in mystery. For most readers and authors alike, the vampire is adark and ominous creature ofthe woods ofHungary or Transylvania. His name is often believed to be ofthe same national origin.! However, both linguistic studies concerning the etymology ofthe term vampire and the first recorded occurrences of the word in major European languages indicate that the word is neither Hungarian nor Romanian. There are four clearly discernible schools ofthought on the etymology of vampire, advocating Turkish, Greek, Slavic, and Hungarian roots for the term. The four groups are, respectively, chronological and geographic entities : the first group is represented by a nineteenth-century Austrian linguist and his followers; the second consists of scholars who were the German contemporaries of the early eighteenth-century vampire craze; the third comprises recent linguistic authorities; and the last is almost entirely limited to recent English and American writers. The first group of etymological theorists on the word vampire consists of Franz Miklosich and many followers, Montague Summers and Stephan Reprinted from the Journal ofthe History ofldeas 46 (1985): 577-583. 3 Katharina M. Wilson Hock among them, who use him as their authority.2 Miklosich, a late nineteenth-century Austrian linguist, suggests in his influential work Etymologie der slavischen Sprachen that the word vampire and its Slavic synonyms upior, uper, and upyr are all derivatives of the Turkish uber (witch). The second theory subscribes to the classical origins of the term. Summers , for instance, refers to an unidentified authority claiming the Greek verb 'Tn (to drink) as a possible source for vampire. 3 Another etymological explanation along this line was proposed by Harenberg in the eighteenth century. S. Hock quotes the German scholar as saying, "Es last sich vermuten dass das Wort zusammen gesetzet sey aus Bluht draus Vam geworden, und piren, das ist begierig nach einer Sache trachten."4 The third theory, which advocates the Slavic origin ofthe word, has now gained almost universal acceptance, and the root noun underlying the term is considered to be the Serbian word BAMIIUP. Kluge, Falk-Torp, the Grimm brothers, Wick, and Vaillant all point to the Serbian origin of the word as do, for example, the OED (London, 1903), the German Brockhaus, the Spanish Encyclopedia Universal Illustrada (Madrid, 1930-33), and the Swensk Etymologisk Ordbok (Lund, 1934-54).5 Vasmer mentions the 1074 Liber Prophetarum as a possible source for the term, but this suggestion is refuted by A. Bruckner on the grounds that in the Liber Prophetarum the word upir appears as a proper name.6 Other sporadic attempts to explain the Slavic etymology of the word include Sobolevskij's theory that vampire derives from an old Polish or Polabic root and Maszynski's suggestion that the Serbo-Croatian verb pirati (to blow) contains the stem for vampire.7 A. N. Manas'ev lists several possible theories, among them the Lithuanian wempti (to drink).8 A quite convincing case for the Bulgarian origin of the word is made by A. Bruckner in his 1934 article "Etymologien."9 He contends the Serbian term vampir is only a borrowing from Bulgarian via Greek. Thus, the Serbian BAMIIUP appears to have served merely as a transmitter, but is not the root of the term. The fourth school ofwriters, notably English and American, contend that the beliefin vampires has its roots in ancient superstition but that the word itselfis ofrecent and Hungarian origin. In a recent publication on vampires, for example, Raymond McNally says: Linguistic authorities differ over the origin of the word. For example, F. Miklosich, an eminent scholar of Slavic languages, claims that "vampire" derives from uber, the Turkish word for witch. But undoubtedly the source of "vampire" is the Hungarian...

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