Talk:Nosferatu (word)

message: Why does the term Nosferatu, currently link to the article Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens? Shouldn't Nosferatu redirect to here? --Hibernian 06:35, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a historical thing. This started out as a section of the article on the movie and the guy keeping it apparently got annoyed with increasing length of the etymology section and pulled it out into a redirect. I would think that this is properly the main article, but I didn't want to hassle with the whole voting process. Tarchon 18:50, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirect Nosferatu? 

message: Although by no means a linguist, I'd like to propose a different origin / etymology of the word:
from the ancient Greek words "νόσφι" + "ερατός" > νοσφιερατος (nosphi^era^tos), where:
:*"νόσφι" (nosphi) is an adverb meaning "away from, far from, separated from" (Homer, Hesiod). See "nosphi" at Liddell-Scott on-line.
:*"ερατός" (era^tos) is an adjective meaning "beloved / lovely". See "era^tos" at Liddell-Scott on-line
:*Interestingly, the ancient Greek verb "νοσφίζομαι" (nosphizomai) (derived from "nosphi")  means "depart from", and also metaphorically means "separate someone from life" (Euripides). See "nosphizomai" at Liddell-Scott on-line here or  here.
So "νοσφιερατος" (nosphi^era^tos) would mean something like "separated / deprived from one's (life and) beloved ones". Phonetically, it is extremely close to "nosferatu" and the meaning also makes (almost perfect) sense.  
I'd like to hear your comment on this :)
Bill Dekleris, 195.97.81.120 18:04, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I don't think you'd like to hear my comment on it. :) Tarchon 18:50, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Ignoring the snarky comments, I think that's pretty convincing. Here's a suggestion my friend and I came up with: the word "sfera" means "sphere" in Romanian. It seems reasonable to someone who doesn't know Romanian that the word "sferatu" could mean "earthly", "of this world"; and hence "no sferatu" would mean "not of this earth". Any comment from someone who knows the language?--Rfsmit (talk) 00:15, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's just another "sound alike" hypothesis. See my comment about "no suffer rat too". There's no historical connection at all. Plus, "sferatu" isn't a word in Romanian either. Tarchon (talk) 17:49, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Actually you were wrong about it being a "sound alike" hypothesis. Perhaps you're confused by the automated translation tools on the Internet leaving words in "-tu" untranslated? "Sferatu" might not be a word in modern Romanian, but "sfera" is. The final -tu of Nosferatu looks to be a suffix, as it does in other words in "-tu". Plainly, it's a real, yet rare particle. Now, I'm not sure on this, but it appears that "-tu" is either the simple past tense, or it's equivalent to English "-er" (inceputu = begun; while desertu = deserter). (Or am I seeing "-tu" when it's actually "-u"?) So I maintain that "No-sfera-tu" looks remarkably like it could mean "otherworld-er"; or "otherworld-ed", i.e. "banished from this sphere". Now, (sigh) can a linguist comment on this please?--Rfsmit (talk) 21:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  "-tu" isn't a suffix in itself. "Început" is a noun that means "beginning" or the p. participle of începire, "begun." "Începutul" is the definite form ("the beginning"). There is no "începutu" in standard Romanian orthography, but the 'l' in "-ul" is often dropped in speech, sometimes spelled like "începutu'". Most Romanian past participles end in "-t" (not all, but most), and the masc. definite article is "-ul", so naturally Romanian has thousands upon thousands of words that end in "-t-ul". There's no particular reason to think that Romanians go around calling vampires "the unsphered ones" though. I don't know why you can't see that you're doing "sound alike" - your whole argument is that it "looks remarkably like" this, that, and the other thing. Using the word "look" instead of "sound" doesn't make it any less of a loose appeal to coincidence. You have to cite actual cases of Romanians using word X to mean "vampire" or at least something respectably close like "Necuratul". "Nesfârşitul" ("the endless one") is really a much better fit than *nesferatul in that it actually does exist as a word, but it still lacks any citations of a relevant usage. Necuratul, nesfârşitul, nesuferitul, any one would fit to the level of accuracy in Gerard's transcription, but there's just no way to tell without more primary evidence. A (sigh) linguist is just going to tell you the same thing I'm telling you since this is all pretty straightforward linguistics. Tarchon (talk) 21:34, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  A suggestion on etymology 

message: Mightn't there be a dialect variant of Nesuferitul that pronounces it Nesuferîtul?  Prior to a spelling reform in the 20th Century, î sounds were often written â, as they still are in reference to Romania.
Might Nesuferâtul be where "Nesuferatul" would come from? 71.223.141.236 (talk) 19:49, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If it's linguistically logical, and those linguistic developments have been documented, then it's not "original research" to point out each of the logical steps to reproduce it here.--Rfsmit (talk) 21:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wait... 

message: Just a simple observation. The Greek word *νοσοφόρος translates to fosfer in Dutch (my home language). In English it is 
Phosphorus, 
The chemical element that has the symbol P and atomic number 15. The name comes from the Greek: φώς (meaning "light") and φόρος (meaning "bearer").
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorus  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Annehurst (talk • contribs) 03:14, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Phospohorus is φωσφόρος in Greek (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%86%CF%89%CF%83%CF%86%CF%8C%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%82), not νοσοφόρος. Tarchon (talk) 18:26, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  νοσοφόρος 

message: A couple of points that could be relevant:
1. Romanian has words for vampire; one is "vampir", obviously, and others are "strigoi" and "moroi", both of which have Wikipedia entries that could perhaps be linked from this one.
2. Not everyone in Transylvania speaks Romanian.  Some residents there speak German, Hungarian, and Romani (Gypsy language, not remotely related to Romanian), and a hundred years ago surely more, and probably Hebrew (before the Holocaust, but I don't know this for sure).  Modern Romanian also has Hungarian and Turkish words, among others.  Perhaps the person who referenced the word actually heard it from one of these languages.  Another question, though, is that Transylvania wasn't always part of Romania.  Also, there is a stereotype in some parts of Europe that all Romanians are Gypsies; perhaps the scholar in question could have confounded Romani and Romanian.
3. Just a possibility that came into my head, so, alas, it's original research: "nusfârşitul" means "the unending" in Romanian.  Superstitious Romanians are known to come up with ways to describe the devil without saying "dracul".  But it's hard to believe an English scholar would reference a word as being THE Romanian word for "vampire" that was a misunderstanding of real Romanian, and no one in Romania would have ever heard the misunderstood phrase used to refer to vampires, even in its correct form.
--Badmuthahubbard (talk) 22:40, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, just wanted to correct myself, the Romanian word I suggested should read "nesfârşitul", not "nusfârşitul".
Badmuthahubbard (talk) 16:26, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yeah, I have seen nesfârşitul, and the similarity is tempting, but like you couldn't find any indication that anyone used it to mean vampir, strigoi, moroi, etc. It's not clear to me that endlessness would be a property of vampires that stood out in the mind of Romanian peasants, even if it appeals well to the modern day vampire myth. Tarchon (talk) 21:42, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

text: It's not so far-fetched - Gerard was just a German-speaking literary critic and novelist from Scotland, not really a specialist in East/Central European languages. I wouldn't be at all surprised if she didn't know the difference between Romanian and Gypsy/Romani speech, although she did clearly distinguish between Romanian and Gypsy ethnicities. The main reason I think it probably was Romanian is that it seems very similar to a Romanian definite past participle with the "ne-" prefix. Most Romanians seem to immediately recognize the similarity. They know it's "ne[something]tul" but they can't quite decide what would fit for the "something". Tarchon (talk) 22:02, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Romania and Romanian 

message: Hi! im just writting my pov  of the etymology of the word nosferatu.
 i have done a reasearch in wiki here are my results:
Nos- fera-tu
(1) Nos- means in ProtoGermanic,Czech,Polish,Serbo-Croatian= nose(!). and in Welsh = night
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nasa , http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nos
(2)fera- means in Latin= wild animal.(!) 
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fera
(3)           in Old Irish= man. 
 http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fer
(4)tu-means in Latin,French,Italian,Romanian,Romani  = you(thou).      but also
(5)  means in Czech= here.        and
(6)  means in Croatian=there. 
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tu
So i think that Nosferatu could propably mean  you(thou),the wild animal(beast,savage) with the nose according with 1,2,4    
                                               you(thou),the man with the nose  according with 1,3,4 
Also Romanian language is a based in Latin lamguage and Latin is based in Greek. So -fera  might comes from the Greek φέρω(fero)= bear,bring like νοσοφόρος(nosoforos)-the bearer  of the disease. I think that if we dlike to adoupt the idea that -fera=to bear,  according with the above would be you(thou), the nose bearer but ithink is funny so i dont think it would be right even if Nosferatu has al ong and terryfying nose in that case dont match. Also the idea that the meaning could be "not of this earth" as someone mentioned has a connection with(5) so it could be "not from here".( not from the living world).Finally  according with Welsh translation of Nos=night, you(thou),who bears/brings the night( the night bearer).
Propably could be the first one you(thou),the wild animal(beast,savage) with the (terryfying,ugly,horrible)nose
or  you(thou),who bears/brings the night( the night bearer) or even you(thou),the disease bearer( if Nos-=νόσος(disease))
For the Nos- , im sure that means nose in this case.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.72.183.35 (talk) 05:52, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nos-fera-tu 

message: Based on the article and the first comments, it appears that this article is
based to a non-trivial degree on original research or (for WP) undue synthesis. I have added the original-research tag.
94.220.254.157 (talk) 20:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original research 

message: If Emily Gerard just made up an impressive sounding word and declared it Romanian (to a readership of which the vast majority could not understand a word of Romanian). 82.153.198.135 (talk) 12:49, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: I wonder

message: If Nos is merely an abomination for Narem, and if feratu is an abomination of Feritu (a swift strike), clearly a fourth declension noun in Latin, it is clear that [Aliquis] Qui Nosferatu is merely a corruption of [Aliquis] Qui Naremferitu, someone who punches someone else in the nose.   Clearly abominable!     216.99.201.236 (talk) 07:58, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: [Qui] Narem ferit 

message: I'm talking about the one suggesting the individual syllables from a Latin standpoint, "nos/noster tu fera" "you are our wild beast".
This etymology suggested seems improbable, due to the fact that it is unlikely Romanian would have preserved a Latin construction so conservatively for this word, considering the way the rest of the language evolved. In addition, each of the Latin words led to a different Romanian word that has changed phonetically over time, except for 'tu'. Nos (noster) -> 'nostru, noastră' ("our"), Fera -> 'fiară' ("wild beast"). Word dewd544 (talk) 14:21, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be nostra tu fera, and only in the most effete Classical Latin. Vulgarly, you'd never split the NP like that, more like "tu fera nostra". Valde dubito. Tarchon (talk) 00:52, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regarding Nos-Fera-Tu Etymology

message: I could be wrong about this but in Italian does "Nos" not mean "Our" or something like that and in some other language does "Feratu" mean "Fair Lady"?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Domicrow1 (talk • contribs) 21:17, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  My theory (probably wrong) 

message: My take on the etymology is that it comes from the Latin "non speratus" meaning "the one who is not to be hoped for", i.e. a terrible demon whose name must not be uttered for fear of the consequences, but who has to be referred to in this understated but devastating way.Iconophile Cawkwell (talk) 08:29, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is Latin the key? 

message: The last phrase in the article ("considering that the pre-reform Romanian writing accepted the circumflex diacritic â as a variant of î (România → Romînia), so that the word might have been transcribed as nesuferatu.") makes absolutely no sense and should be removed. It is true that â and î were used interchangeably to denote the high central vowel phoneme of Romanian /ɨ/. However, /ɨ/ is a completely different sound than /i/ and the word nesuferit(ul) has an /i/, not an /ɨ/, so there is absolutely no chance that it would be written with an a. With respect, that statement can only have been conceived by someone who does not have a clear understanding of phonology and specifically of Romanian phonology. See Romanian_phonology#Vowels. Pasquale (talk) 16:45, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  The last statement makes no sense and should be removed 

message: According toTheresa Bane's 2010 Encyclopedia of Vampire Mythology, "Nosferatu" is the plural form of Nosferat (“plague carrier”) and cites four sources for this.  It also presents "Necuratul" (“unclean one”) as a variant.  The listing make no statement about the language the word is from.--2606:A000:7D44:100:886A:EC5A:473A:5345 (talk) 03:00, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Plural form of Nosferat?

message: Strangely, the article does not mention the latin form "non expiratus" or "non feratus" (not dead). Being italian, the word Nosferatu immediately recalls the italian expression "non spirato" (not dead, derived from the above-mentioned non expiratus) to me so I always thought it came from there. The possible latin origin is mentioned in this book on vampirism by Alessandro Norsa:
https://books.google.it/books?id=aQDHDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT37&lpg=PT37&dq=non+expiratus&source=bl&ots=iZkUlUnrSB&sig=J9o9on7zoQ8H_zJl83DzM99GhTM&hl=it&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj4rc_9v4jcAhXMzqQKHVf0CTUQ6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q=non%20expiratus&f=false
--NuM3tal95 (talk) 17:41, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etimology 

message: I am surprised the article has considered the lesser relation of the Greek word nosophoros (νοσοφόρος) but ignores the stonger and more probable relation to another Greek word, νόσφιν (nosfin), and its various derivatives.
The following definitions can be readily found in the online Greek-English Lexicon:"Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon", from the Perseus Digital Library.
νόσφιν (nosfin): far from, aloof, apart, forsaken, secretly (!).
νοσφίδιος (nosfidios):  clandestine (!) (i.e. something planned or done in secret).
νοσφιδόν (nosfidon):  by stealth (!).
νοσφίζω (nosfizo):  turn away, shrink back, foresake, abandon, separate, remove, deprive, rob. 
νοσφίζομαι (nosfizomai):  separate, to turn one's back upon, depart from, to deprive.
νοσφιστής (nosfistes):  speculator (i.e. stealer).
νοσφισμός (nosfismos):  absence.
From the above definitions it is clear that there seems to be some correlation between the meanings of the above words and the nature of a vampire, that is:
far away, forsaken, secretly, clandestine, by stealth, abandoned, departed, to steal, to be absent.
Also notice that the above words are not compound words (except νοσφίδιος), that is they have only one synthetic, the word nosfi. A second word is not added after nosfi. Only their endings change according to grammar, being either a verb or an adverb, an adjective, a noun, and so on.
Any comments?
Ate Nike (talk) 20:12, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed Ancient Greek Etymology from νόσφιν (nosfin) and its derivatives 

message: In response to former Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani's comment on his podcast "Common Sense", in which he asks, "Why doesn't he leave this country and take a knee somewhere else?", Eminem  released a parody diss verse to the backing track of his 2002 hit song "Lose Yourself". The verse was debuted on The Late Show in February 2022, and compared Giuliani to "a less ethical Nosferatu". DezzyDezz (talk) 22:29, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  In popular culture