Ghouls and Ghosts

Although I have written a number of books on ghost stories, these you'll find at the end of this piece, here I'm looking at the origins of the many assorted named used to describe these supernatural beings. In some cases the etymologies are even weirder than the stories.

Banshee - in Irish folklore this fairy is held to predict an imminent death. First recorded in 1771 as Irish bean sidhe, this the phonetic spelling for 'female of the elves'. The root bean 'woman' from the Proto-Indo-European root gwen with the same meaning of 'woman'.

Bogeyman, unsurprisingly, is a combination of two words. The suffix 'man' is unchanged since at least Proto-Indo-European, while 'bogey' is another form of many dialect terms - such as 'bogge, boggart, bogle, etc, - all from the same root as Welsh bwg 'goblin' and thought to date back to 'buck', a goat-like supernatural creature and a word which can traced back to Proto-Indo-European bhugo 'buck, goat'. This is hardly a surprise as many supernatural beings are depicted with horns reminiscent of those worn by a goat.

Brownie comes from Scotland, a diminutive of 'a wee brown man' and thus comes from the same root as the colour, itself from Proto-Indo-European bher which also means simply 'brown'.

Demon still has the alternative spelling of 'daemon' in English, this the Latin word for 'spirit' and taken from the Greek daimon 'deity, divine power, lesser god'. The Greek comes directly from Proto-Indo-European dai mon 'the divider, provider' and thus only in recent times have demons been perceived with any negativity.

Devil here is used to mean 'evil spirit' rather than the alternative name for Satan. Here 'devil' comes to English from Latin, Greek, Jewish, where diaballein 'to slander, attack' (although literally 'throw across') from Proto-Indo-European dia 'across, through' and gwele 'to throw, reach'.

Elf is from Germanic folklore, where it was used to refer to any small supernatural being. Here the Proto-Germanic albiz is thought to come from Proto-Indo-European albho 'white' and a reasonable description of an indistinct ghostly image.

Fairy is derived from Latin fata 'the Fates' of Roman mythology. This is derived from Proto-Indo-European bha 'to speak, say'.

Genie comes from the Latin genius, the original meaning being 'an individual's guardian spirit'. This derived from the same root as 'gene' in 'birth, beget'.

Ghost comes from Old English gast 'breath' as well as 'good or bad spirit'. This Germanic word can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European gheis which is the root for so many words in any number of languages, all meaning 'excitement, amazement, fear, wonder' such as Sanskrit hedah 'wrath', Avestan zaesha 'horrible', and Gothic usgaisjan 'frighten'.

Goblin has an uncertain origin, although it may be from Greek kobalas 'rogue, knave' and possibly a diminutive of the proper noun Gobel.

Imp, until the 14th century, referred not to fauna but flora, the change almost gradual and initially referring to 'a little one'. Earlier this was used to mean 'young shoot, graft' and began as Proto-Indo-European bheue'to be, exist, grow'.

Incubus, credited with causing nightmares makes the origin of Latin incubo 'nightmare' and from incubare 'to lie upon'.

Kobold shares an origin with 'cobalt', a metal not named until 1733 and not used as a colour unbtil 1835. Here the metal, and thus the colour, come from the German kobold 'household goblin' - the name being taken for the ore as it contained traces of arsenic and sulphur and made the miners in the Harz Mountains ill.

Leprechaun is from Irish luchorpan 'a very small body' and from the Proto-Indo-European legwh 'not heavy' and kwrep 'body'.

Phantom, in the sense of 'spirit, ghost' is unrecorded before the 14th century, prior to that it had been used to mean 'to bring light' and is derived from Proto-Indo-European bha 'to shine'.

Poltergeist is German and means 'noisy ghost'. This is derived from Proto-Indo-European bhel 'to roar, sound', itself also the origin of both 'bellow' and 'bell'.

Spectre shares a root with 'spectrum', both from Proto-Indo-European spek 'to observe'.

Spirit can be traced to Proto-Indo-European speis 'to blow', this developing into Latin and French words suggesting 'breath of life'.

Spook is from the Middle Dutch spooc 'ghost'. While the trail ends here, we can find related words such as Danish spog 'joke' and Swedish spok 'scarecrow'.

Sprite shares an origin with 'spirit' (see above).

Succubus is related to 'incubus' (see above) but here means 'to lie under'. The word is seen in Latin succuba, used to refer to a 'fiend in female form having a sexual connection with men in their sleep'.

Troll is an Old Norse word, used as a noun to mean 'giant not of the human race' but also as an adjective 'to walk clumsily'. Here the latter possibly came from the verb form, itself meaning 'to stroll'.

Wraith is also from Old Norse, coming to English from vorthr meaning 'guardian'. Now today the 'wraith' is never seen positively and thus this Old Norse root is probably a red herring and we should be looking at the same root as 'wrath', itself having numerous forms in Germanic tongues all meaning 'anger, cruel, offended' and based on Proto-Indo-European wer 'to turn, bend'.

Zombie is of West African origin and originally the name of a snake god. It is related to Kikongo zumbi 'fetish' and Kimbundu nzambi 'god'.

These and other terms can be found in my books on the supernatural and paranormal. See how my research uncovered a relative in Haunted Worcestershire, read the best-seller Black Country Ghosts, hear about the intriguing telephone call in Paranormal Cotswolds, have a look at where I live in Paranormal Staffordshire, find out there is more to Warwick than its famous castle in Ghosts Around Warwickshire, and read how her lover could never admit he wasn't in the room when she had the best sex of her life in Ghosts Around Birmingham.

Universal Languages Few Understand

Anyone who has read much of this blog will be aware my interest is in the development of words and languages. Whilst modern languages are most often named after the nation where they were originally spoken, there are those which have no national identity. I am thinking here of the artificial languages created in comparatively recent times, the most famous of which is Esperanto although there are a number of computer languages included. As these are such recent creations, I would hope the names would have been well thought out beforehand. At least the modern origins should mean there are no doubts as to the origins.

Esperanto was created in 1887 by Polish-born Lazarus Ludwig Zamenhof but not officially named until five years later. Oddly the name of the language comes from a term in Esperanto where Doktoro Esperanto means 'one who hopes'. This is the pen-name used by Zamenhof and on the title page.

Idiom Neutral was published in 1902 by the International Academy of the Universal Language, it is a revised form of Volapuk (see below), this considered imperfect. The reworking brought in many western terms and while technically a revision is in almost every aspect a new language - the name describes 'the neutral language'.

Interglossa was invented by biologist Lancelot Hogben in an attempt to provide a link between science terminology and etymology and the classical languages after having noticed the difficulty students had in learning scientific terms. This 'between languages' idea is also the origin of the name.

Interlingua is a computer language produced by the International Auxiliary Language Association, this founded by the American heiress Alice Vanderbilt Morris in the 1920s. As a name it speaks for itself.

Novial is derived from nov 'new' plus the initial letters IAL standing for International Auxiliary Language. It is designed to allow those who speak native languages to speak a single common tongue. With sources in Romance, Germanic, Occidental and Ido tongues, it first came to light in the late 1920s and virtually disappeared with the death of its inventor, Otto Jespersen, in 1943. However the internet has seen a minor revival of interest.

Occidental, later known as Interlingue, was another planned language to allow those of differing tongues to converse. Created by German Edgar de Wahl its name is taken from the French and Latin for 'western'.

Tutonish was created in 1901 by Elias Molee, with revisions in 1905 and 1915. It is the first Pan-Germanic language and intended as an Anglo-German unifying language and it is from the name virtually suggested itself. However it never really caught on, as evidenced by its reworking and also the various forms of its name, including Tutonish, Teutonish, Teutonik, Alteutonish, Altutonish, Altetonik, Nu Teutonish, Niu Teutonish, and Neuteutonish.

Volapuk was published in 1880, the work of German priest Johann Martin Schleyer. He claimed he had been told by God to create an international language, one he named to mean 'world speech'. Perhaps unkindly the word is used in other languages, Danish for example, to mean 'nonsense'.

Algol is not derived from the star in the constellation of Perseus, this from the Arabic al-ghul or 'the demon', but a contraction of 'algorithmic language'.

Basic is a computer language, an acronym standing for 'Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code'. It was invented by Hungarian-born US computer scientist John G. Kemeny in 1964.

Cobol is another computer language and acronym created in 1960 by the US Defense Department and describing 'Common Business-Oriented Language'.

Fortran is also a computer language, one dating from 1956 and an abbreviated form of 'formula translation'.

Modula is a programming language created by the Swiss Niklaus Wirth in the 1970s. It is derived from the Pascal (see below) language and named because it uses a module system unlike its predecessor.

Pascal is a computer language invented in 1971 and named for the 17th-century French scholar Blaise Pascal, who invented a calculating machine in 1642.

One thought - if the idea is to produce a single language spoken by us all (presumably as a second language), why are there so many?