Re: [tied] Re: Vampire

A few comments on the recent "vampire" posts:

Grigore Nandris,, in an article in the _Slavonic and East European
Review_ (37:371-77; June, 1959) argued persuasively (to me) that the
<-a> in Dracula is an adaptation of the Slavic masculine genitive
ending <-a> as used in patronymics of the type "StefanU synU
Bogdana." He gives a number of other examples from Slavo-
Romanian chancery documents. In Latin sources this form is taken as
nominative and given the gen. ending <-e> and the acc. ending <-am>.
Hence Dracula is in effect nothing more than "son of Dracul (i.e., Vlad
II, or Vlad I depending on how many Vlad's you count). Vlad III did in
fact sign his name "Dragulya" (1475) and "Drakulya" (1476) in surviving
letters, so the name was not a posthumous creation. I don't think too
much significance should be placed on the variation between <g> and
<k>.

A relatively balanced account of the Wallachian prince's life is _Vlad III
Dracula: The Life and Times of the Historical Dracula_, by Kurt
Treptow (2000). Treptow includes excerpts from Greek and Ottoman
sources, though I think all his translations are based on Romanian
translations of the originals. The epithet "impaler" (�epe�) wasn't used
till well after Vlad's death.

In response to Piotr's comment about the outcome of the nasal vowel
in <vampir>: Yes, it's well known that some peripheral Macedonian
dialects have turned Slavic nasal vowels into V + N, but why would a
form from these dialects diffuse so widely? I don't know of any other
examples, though this is an issue for Slavists rather than Cybalist
members.

Jim Rader