about the following:
Romanian folkore makes reference to a couple of fabulous beings
having some "vampire" attributes. There is "vârcolac" (the closest
equivalent of `vampire`) -- an undetermined being "eating" the Sun
or the Moon during eclipses but also a non-dead blood-sucking guy;
obviously, the etymon is Slavic (Bulgarian "vãrkolak"). There are
also other kinds of non-dead guys (merely kinds of ghosts) from
which the most vampire-like word could be "strigoi" (still Slavic).
>> "Nosferatu" is Bram Stoker's invention, perhaps a garbled
>> version of a genuine Romanian word (e.g. <nesuferitul> 'the
>> unbearable'?). Again, our Romanian friends are better qualified
>> to judge.
>
> I don't know. <nesuferitul> might be too... weak
> for such a terrible character.
For `the Devil`, Daco-Romanian uses "Necuratul" (or, sometimes,
"Nefârtatul", literally meaning `the one who's not in brotherhood
[with humans]`). A derivation from the latter one seems unlikely
as phonetics come into play; "Nesuferitul" is slightly better from
this point of view (still /i/ > /a/ would be rather strange), but
doesn't qualify because it's not used to design evil beings.
I would pick something not too far from Ned's etymology proposal,
even if the final /u/ in "Nosferatu" sounds somehow Romanian.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Nesuferitul", same as "Nesuferitu" means "the Unbearabal one/the
Unsufferable" in romanian, "a suferi" means "to suffer/to be
tormented"
"Necuratu" is "Ne-curat" meaning "the Devil himself", "curat"
meaning "clean". "curat-ul" = "the clean one"and "curatu" are the
same, "Necuratul" would be the literary form of the popular
form "Necuratu".
Devil=Drac
"Varcolac" : "Varc"+"colac", could be the slavo-
germanic "Valc/Wulf"(in romanian "lup") + "colac" wich means "coil"
=> "CoiledWolf". "Lup colac" would be "a coiled wolf", the "coil
position" is used in romanian for wolves and dogs, when they are on
the ground, sleeping or saving wormth, or when they are watching the
pray from unseen position, when they are stalking the victim, and
also for the snakes when they strangle/suffocate pray,
"colac" could also be un old word for "ghoul", iving the fact that
gauls were the enemies of dacians, but i don't have proofs yet
"strigoi", i would relate it with the verb "a striga", in romanian,
meaning "to shout/to scream",
other undead beeing is "moroi", i would relate it with the
word "mort"="dead" and "omorit"="killed", from "a muri"="to die",
and "a omori"="to kill"