A quick consultation of dictionaries and our polyglot student body (one of the advantages of working at a Central European institution) yielded names for werewolf in assorted languages:
Spanish and Greek keep the "man+ wolf" combination
Italian: lupo mannaro (where does this come from? Germ. 'man'??)
Basque: otso-gizon (anyone know Basque?]
For the Petronius' "versipellis", it's always the idea of "turning". The
man turns the fur of his skin "inside", the wolf turns it "outside".
The theme of turning is continued in Russ. oboroteny (so too Georgian). Otherwise Slavs (and Balts) have variants of 'wolf' + -(od)lak (Polish wilkolak, Czech/Slovak Croat. vlkodlak, Ukr. bobkylaka, Lith. vilkolakis, Latv. vilkacis. Borrowed into Romanian as varcolac, but there he's the creature who takes a bite out of the moon during the eclipse). Everyone agrees about the first element, but have different interpretations of the o(d)lak element ('fast moving', 'cat', 'fur', 'clutching by throat', pejorative, etc.). Can our Slavicists shed light on the etymology?
Strangely, neither Hungarians nor Albanians have any trad. words or legends relating to werewolves. Neither do Serbs, who say there are such stories in the border regions but they come from the Vlaks.
Brian Donaghey wrote:
Although it has nothing to do with wer(e)wolves, who presumably couldn't
care less how they or anyone else are addressed, .....
Hopefully the above will help members of the list to address such werewolves they met in their travels by their right name :)
(my advice to Brian D.: if you ever happen to meet a werewolf, it would not hurt to be respectful)
Frank Schaer
Medieval Studies, CEU, Budapest
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|