Of Vampires

Last Sunday a reader commented:
A reminder Christina, that the only word adopted into the English language from Serbo-Croatian is “vampir”. As to the “vrdolak”, or werewolf, well that’s another story.

To which I reply, thank you. These days I am fascinated with all things Serb, including the language.

I stab away at learning but resort to a homemade ‘pidgin’. On TV I watch American crime shows with Serbian subtitles and now I know ‘blood’, ‘murder’, ‘kill’, ‘arrested’, ‘victim’ and ‘Oh man!’

For a higher game level challenge I might try and decipher Cyrillic where you have a triangle next to a rake next to something that looks like a squashed spider, and all of it is pronounced like you’re coughing up phlegm.

Then there is Serbia’s contribution to ‘Pop Culture’ regarding vampires and werewolves.

Allegedly, a certain vampire Princess sipped on the milk of lactating wolves so as to beget herself a son. This son lived a long fecund life, his descendants are amongst us. The lactose-tolerant Princess was the inspiration for Stoker’s Drakula. (While she was not Serbian, she came from a land nearby).

Which makes me wonder, speaking of lousy jobs, who milked the she-wolf?

Is it merely coincidence that the shape of the country of Serbia (despite border lines which change with head-spinning rapidity) looks like a baby dragon tip-toeing toward the Croatian coastline, short arms extended, maybe even with a smirk on his face. Is he drunk?

Recently a friend was forced to write a legal document (with pen and paper) and he had to write this in Cyrillic. I watched as he composed the swirling elements, some topped with flourishes of birds flying over, and he repeatedly paused and confessed, ‘I can’t remember how to write in Cyrillic.’

So what hope for me? I’m still having trouble with English.

 

~:~

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