Serbian isn’t a very common language spoken outside of Serbia. In fact, not many Serbian words are even borrowed by other languages. But there’s one exception to this, and that’s the word vampire.The modern English word vampire comes from the Serbian word вампир (vampir). This word is found in all sorts of languages in the region, like Hungarian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, or Polish.
The word vampire roughly translates into “ghost monster,” and that gives a clue as to what the original idea of a vampire was. In the Middle Ages, only the Balkans and Eastern Europe – Slavic nations – had an idea of a vampire. It hadn’t spread throughout all Europe yet. These vampires were non-corporeal, which means they didn’t have bodies. They were more like ghosts, and they would cause havoc like bringing disease to villages. These vampires didn’t create new vampires with their bite, and they didn’t drink any blood.
In 1686, German-speaking peoples took over Hungary and soldiers from the German armies began to spread the legend of vampires westward. The word vampire first appeared in English in 1732, the year George Washington was born. As the legend of the vampire spread from the east to west, the vampire gained different qualities. The idea of a vampire became that of a risen corpse that had to drink blood in order to survive. This addition to the legend is a Western 18th century addition. Of course, that leads us to the most famous vampire story of all time, Dracula, which was published in 1897.
That story takes place in Transylvania, nestled in the Carpathian Mountains.So even though medieval legends and our modern conception of vampires use the same word, they aren’t describing the same thing. But still, vampire is the most common Serbian word in the world today.
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