# Vampire < Ubyr - Etymology.



## ancalimon

I've read that the word "vampire" comes from the Turkic word "ubyr" meaning witch. Can anyone explain how such a trasformation is possible? I know about people burning "witches" or throwing them to deep rivers during the dark ages. So could it be some made-up children tale to make people hate those "witch" people?

Also is there any known etymology for the word "ubyr"? In Turkish we don't have that word as far as I know.


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## NorwegianNYC

It probably stems from South Slavic _vampir_, again from O.Ch.Sl _upir'_ (упирь), but the exact etymology is not clear. The first recorded use is from an 11th century Old Russian manuscript, which makes the Tartar connection less likely.


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## Treaty

Is there any possibility that it is related to Arabic _ifrit_? They are also related to darkness and blood.


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## NorwegianNYC

The English word _vampire_ was borrowed from French, in turn borrowed it from Serbian _вампир__/vampir, _or some say Hungarian _vampir_. The Hungarian hypothesis might explain why the origins are unclear (since it is non-IE), but it does not explain why it has cognate in virtually every Slavic language: Bulgarian and Macedonian _вампир__ (vampir), _Czech and Slovak _upir_, Polish _wapierz_ , Russian _упырь__ (upyr')_, Belarussian _упыр__ (upyr)_, Ukrainian _упир__ (upyr)_,  from Old Russian _упирь__ (upir')_.

The word is found for the first time in written form in 1047 in a letter to a Novgorodian prince referring to him as 'U_pir Lichyj'_ (Оупирь Лихыи).

The Tartar hypothesis might also explain why a PIE etymology is unclear, but again, linguistically and culturally, vampires are associated with the Slavic peoples, and not the Tartars. It is actually more likely that the Tartars borrowed it from Old Slavic, than the other way around.

Other than that, anyone’s guess is valid. It has been suggested it is related to Serbo-Croatian “u-pir” (blow), Greek/OCS “pij” (drink), or it might be related to Russian _netopyr_' (bat), and ultimately from the PIE root for "to fly". However, all of these suggestions leave a lot to be desired.


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## sotos

NorwegianNYC said:


> anyone’s guess is valid.


That's how I like it.

There is a (medieval?) Greek word that may be candidate for relative: _bambouras_. It refers to some big flying insects (like *bubble* bees), from the classic Gr. βόμβος (_vomvos_, buzz) and this probably from onomatopoieia. 
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aalphabetic+letter%3D*b%3Aentry+group%3D28%3Aentry%3Dbo%2Fmbos


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## Vulcho

Bulgarian and Serbian _vampir _are loanwords from Greek. The Greek word in turn is an earlier loan from Bulgarian. Some dialects preserve the native form which has developed to _въпирь (văpir') _after the loss of nasal vowels.


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## francisgranada

The Hungarian _vámpír _might be the source for Western European languages, but the Hungarian word itself is probably of Serbian (or Croatian) origin. Also, most (or all?) of the old Hungarian written "documents" about vampires (people who are burried, but are not dead "enough" and during the night leave their graves ...) report stories from the Southern parts of the former Hungarian Kingdom, inhabited by Slavic speaking people.


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## Ben Jamin

The tales about vampires origianted in Transilvania, so the Hungarian or Romanian origin is quite plausible, and the word itself may have Greek roots.

I doubt if the Slavic *upir *(Polish upiór) has anything to do with *vampire*.


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## NorwegianNYC

Before Bram Stoker, vampires were not associated with Transylvania in particular, but sooner modern-day Serbia. As francisgranada points out - all documentation of the "modern" phenomenon seems to come from the Banat and Serbia. Stoker moved it to Translylvania to conflate it with the legends surrounding Vlad Tepes.


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## Vulcho

Tales about vampires are common all over the Balkans. The specifics vary from region to region. The proto-Slavic word was _õpirь. _Initial _õ- _developed into _u- _in Serbo-Croatian, and into _v__ă__- _in Bulgarian. Compare Serbian _ugalj, uže, uzao_ vs Bulgarian _въглен (v__ăglen), въже (__v__ă__že), възел (v__ăzel__) _etc. Likewise, Croatian _upir_ vs Bulgarian _v__ăpir. _The word passed into Greek while the _ă _was still nasal, thus we have _vampir_, not _vapir _.


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## Christo Tamarin

Any Turkic connection for this word is unprobable. 

The word is Slavic. In Common Old Slavonic it just meant *bat* (the animal of Chiroptera) and looked (v)(am)pirъ where:


The initial *v* could either be a prothesis regularly found in such a position (as Vulcho explained) or be mistaken as such a prothesis. This explains why the initial consonant is missing sometimes in Slavic.
(am) was a back nasal vowel which changed to *U* in many Slavic languages as Russian, BCS etc.

Going back in time, the Slavonic word could be a borrowing from Latin/Romance into Slavic: *vespertilio* (vesper: evening) which in turn could be a calque of the Greek νυχτερίδα (νυχτα: night) or vice versa.

Going from that time on, tales related that word to darkness and blood and it adopt another meaning, a magic one. That's why new Slavic languages, already separated, had to invent other words for the Chiroptera animal (Bulg. прилеп, Russian летучая мышь, Polish nietoperze, BCS šišmiš, Czech letouni, etc).

Most probably, the very old look of that Slavonic word, *vampire*, was preserved in Romano-balkanic and Hungarian. From there, it went to French and then to English.

The Bulgarian word *вампир* is a borrowing: either from Romano-balkanic (if it is older than 19-th century) or from French. The corresponding old Slavonic word was lost in Bulgarian.


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## NorwegianNYC

Vulcho said:


> The word passed into Greek while the _ă _was still nasal, thus we have _vampir_, not _vapir _.


Question: Is it possible that it entered Hungarian from _v__ă-pir _first? And that e.g. Serbian and Bulgarian borrowed it back from Hungarian? (as opposed to from Greek)


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## ancalimon

What I meant was that maybe some people related "blood sucking monster" with the Turkic word ubyr to make common people hate those harmless witches leading to mass murders of those people.


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## Outsider

NorwegianNYC said:


> The word is found for the first time in written form in 1047 in a letter to a Novgorodian prince referring to him as 'U_pir Lichyj'_ (Оупирь Лихыи).


And what did calling someone a _upir_ mean back then?


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## francisgranada

NorwegianNYC said:


> Question: Is it possible that it entered Hungarian from _vă-pir _first? ...


If this "_*ă*_" is not a nasal vowel, but it corresponds to the Slavic (Bulgarian) "_*ъ*_", then I think this is highly improbable. Depending on the time of the possible borrowing and on how this "_ă_" sounded exactly, in this case in Hungarian we should expect "_vapír_" or "_vopír_". 

Another interesting question regarding the possible etymology of this word is, why both the vowels *á* and_ *í*_ are long in Hungarian, i.e. _v*á*mp*í*r_ pronounced [‘va:mpi:r]? … (in Hungarian, whichever of these vowels could be also short).


> … And that e.g. Serbian and Bulgarian borrowed it back from Hungarian? (as opposed to from Greek)


1. According to some sources (e.g. the online English Etymology dictionary) the word _vampire (vampiro etc …) _in the Western European languages is a borrowing from Hungarian (_vámpír_), through German and/or French.
2. In Polish (according to Wikipedia) the following variants do or did exist: _wampir, wąpierz, upiór, upir_. _Wąpierz_ is the only form that may phonetically correspond to the supposed (Proto)Slavic *_ǫpir(ь)._
3. In Slovak both _upír _and _vampír _exist. _Upír_ is the form that may correspond to the presupposed *_ǫpirь._
4. In Checz both _upír _and _vampýr_ exist. As regular continuation of the presupposed *_ǫpirь_, I should expect _upí*ř*._
5. In Russian both _упырь _and _вампир _exist_. _As the regular form of *_ǫpirь_, I should expect _уп*и*р(ь)_.

So, regardless of the "final" origin of this word (Turkic or whatever) , there are too many variants in the Slavic languages, so I think that multiple (re)borrowings surely took place, probably from Hungarian and/or German and, maybe, also among various Slavic languages. For example in Polish, I dare say that it is simply impossible that all the mentioned variants were the direct continuation of a single Protoslavic word *_ǫpirь _...


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## NorwegianNYC

Vulcho wrote 





> The word passed into Greek while the ă was still nasal, thus we have vampir, not vapir


. Most sources give that it was borrowed from Hungarian into French/English/German, and then later borrowed back in to several Slavic language, which goes to explain why many of them have two (or more) forms.


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## francisgranada

NorwegianNYC said:


> Vulcho wrote....


Here the Vulcho's answer should be needed ... But if am not mistaken, in his examples {_въглен (văglen), въже (văže), възел (văzel) _etc...}  this _"ă"_ corresponds to a non nasal vowel "_ъ_".

By the way, Vulchos constatation _"The word passed into Greek while the ă was still nasal, thus we have vampir, not vapir" _could eventually explain why the nasal pronounciation ("vam-") still exists in Greek, but not why it does exist also in Bulgarian ... (if not due to a later re-borrowing from Greek)


> ... Most sources give that it was borrowed from Hungarian into French/English/German, and then later borrowed back in to several Slavic language, which goes to explain why many of them have two (or more) forms.


Yes, this is very probable (see my post #15). However, the phonetical correspondecies are not "perfectly" clear ...


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## sotos

The Gr. verb βαμβαίνω  (shiver because of fear or cold, Iliad K, 375) sounds  relevant, at least in the sense that if you see a vampire you will probably be "vamv-ainein" of fear. From this we have the medieval Gr. noun βαμβαλός (tremor, shivering) (Dictionary of Anthimos Gazis).


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## berndf

francisgranada said:


> Here the Vulcho's answer should be needed ... But if am not mistaken, in his examples {_въглен (văglen), въже (văže), възел (văzel) _etc...}  this _"ă"_ corresponds to a non nasal vowel "_ъ_".


Please re-read the Vulcho's post more carefully . He explicitly said was that this "_ъ_" was originally nasal (_Initial õ- developed into u- in Serbo-Croatian, and into vă- in Bulgarian_).


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## francisgranada

I have read it carefully,  but it was not clear enough to me what he wanted to say exactly. But re-reading his previous post (#6), it's now clear. I am sorrry.


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## NorwegianNYC

I am just curious to learn where the Greek connection comes in. If it is true that vă-pir was originally nasal in a South Slavic regionalism, is there any reason to assume it traveled though Greek to become vam-pir?


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## francisgranada

NorwegianNYC said:


> .... If it is true that vă-pir was originally nasal in a South Slavic regionalism, is there any reason to assume it traveled though Greek to become vam-pir?


If we accept that the discussed word originates from the common (or Proto) Slavic *_ǫpirь _ and that this word has spread to other languages through Hungarian, then I think there is no reason to assume that it travelled through Greek.

Another question is the initial "v": it had to be present already in the Southern Slavic languages (especially in the ancient Serbian/Croatian) before the denasalization of "_ǫ"_ and before this word entered in Hungarian (otherwise today we would have probably *_ampire  _instead of _vampire_ ... ).


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