Thursday, May 5, 2011

VAHMPEERIGO..la lingua vampirismo

It it strange that no one ever remarked on this before, but vampires do have a dialect of their own. It contains vocabulary, syntax and grammar borrowed from various tongues. This is due to the fact that life-eaters tend to travel about. Most can sublimate or are privy to other rapid means of transportation. In one night they may hear Italian, Croatian and French. Others may flicker between Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic. The Romance languages tend to predominate due to their Latin origoions. Older vampires, who tend to influence the others, still remember Roman times, as well as the middle ages a period when educated individuals only spoke Latin.

I am familiar with Vahmpeerigo, Jonathon's dialect. It is largely an older form of Spanish, with an admixture of Arabic and Hebrew, plus a smattering of Portuguese. French and Italian words have also found their way into the mix.

Vampires from the eastern Mediterranean speak Koine-eeta, a Greek, Aramaic pastiche. Indeed, some scholars now believe that Aramaic itself was originally a life-eater dialect mixing Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Coptic and other forms. They taught it to the prophets of The Unitarian Testament, in a effort to expand the message and make iit understandable to a wider mix of people.

Other vampire linguistic forms exist in various locales. The regional tongues of Ancient China were married together by 'certain personnages' influential at court,  to become Mandarin. Similar things happened in Slavic speaking areas and among Germanic speakers, as well.

We see a related  thing happening in our own time. Television, the internet and other instantaneous methods of communication blur the lines between seperate, discreet languages. Mass migrations of people does the same thing. English itself, resulted from a mixing of Celtic, Latin, Germanic, and early French forms. In America, we're seeing a facile blending together of English and Spanish which has been going on since 'Wild West' times. Examples = Buckaroo/vaquero...ranch/rancho...pistol/pistola...and everybody knows what loco, rodeo and sombrero mean.

So, in many instances, vampires, due to their familiarity with different peoples and locales, often served as catalysts for progress, expansion and cultural evolution. And while technology fills a similar role today, the debt owed our nocturnal brethren is huge.

Adieus mameejos (adios mi amigos)...(so long, my friends)...Until we meet again. 

No comments: