#vampire linguistics

[writingwithcolor]

[Running Commentary] Zombies are Zombies: Cultural Relativism, Folklore, and Foreign Perspectives

She obviously started getting into media in Japan, and (from my research into Japanese media and culture), Japan’s movies about zombies are mostly comedic, since due to traditional funerary practices the idea of zombies bringing down society is ridiculous to a lot of Japanese people. 

Rina: OP, this you? https://www.tofugu.com/japan/japanese-zombies/

Marika: Counterpoint: Parasite Eve. Resident Evil. The Evil Within. 

Rina: Literally all the grody horror game franchises that people forget were developed and written by Japanese people because the characters have names like “Leon Kennedy” and “Sebastian Castellanos” 

~ ~ ~

Based on the reception we received the last time we did one of these, the Japanese moderator team returns with another running commentary. (They’re easier to answer this way) (Several of Marika’s answers may be troll answers)

Our question today pertains to foreign perspectives on folklore—that is, how people view folklore and stories that aren’t a part of their culture. CW: for anything you’d associate with zombies and a zombie apocalypse, really.

Keep reading for necromancy, horror games, debunking the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, Hong Kong jiangshi films, Japanese disaster prep videos, and Vietnamese idol pop...

Essentially, in my story there’s an organization who wants to end the world. They think this one woman in particular, a woman of mixed Vietnamese (irreligious, Kinh) and Japanese descent who spent her formative years in Japan, is the person to do it because she’s (for lack of a better term) a necromancer; powers are semi-normal in this world. She prefers not to use her powers overall, but when she does she mostly talks to ghosts and spirits that are giving people issues. She could technically reanimate a corpse but she wouldn’t because she feels that would be morally wrong, not to mention she couldn’t start a zombie apocalypse in the traditional sense (plague, virus, etc.) in the first place. 

(Marika (M): Your local public health officials would like to assure necromancers that reviving the dead will not provoke a zombie apocalypse. This is because necromancy is a reanimation technique, and not a pathogenic vector. Assuming that the technique does not release spores, airborne viruses, gasses, or other related physical matter that can affect neighboring corpses in a similar way, there should be no issue. However, necromancers should comply with local regulations w/r to permitting and only raise the dead with the approval of the local municipality and surviving family.)

M: I think it makes sense for most people of E. Asian descent, including Japanese and Vietnamese people, to find it culturally reprehensible to reanimate the dead. I imagine the religious background of your character matters as well. What religion(s) are her family members from? How do they each regard death and the treatment of human remains? Depending on where she grew up, I’m curious on how she got opportunities to practice outside specialized settings like morgues.

M: It’s true, space in Japan is at a premium, even for the dead. You note that most of Japan cremates, but, surely, it must have occurred to you that if there aren’t that many bodies in Japan to raise…she doesn’t exactly have much opportunity to practice with her powers, does she? I yield to our Vietnamese followers on funerary customs in Vietnam, but you may want to better flesh out your world-building logic on how necromancy operates in your story (And maybe distinguish between necromancy v. channeling v. summoning v. exorcisms). 

She obviously started getting into media in Japan, and (from my research into Japanese media and culture), Japan’s movies about zombies are mostly comedic, since due to traditional funerary practices the idea of zombies bringing down society is ridiculous to a lot of Japanese people. 

Rina (R): OP, this you? https://www.tofugu.com/japan/japanese-zombies/

M: Counterpoint: Parasite Eve. Resident Evil. The Evil Within. 

R: Literally all the grody horror game franchises that people forget were developed and written by Japanese people because the characters have names like “Leon Kennedy” and “Sebastian Castellanos” 

R: And yes, the Tofugu article uses Resident Evil and those games to support its theory, with the reason that they are set in the West. But that only suggests that Japanese people consider zombies a Western thing, not that Japanese people consider zombies nonthreatening if they were to exist. 

M: Same with vampires - series like Castlevania also use Western/ European settings and not “Vampires in Japan '' because vampires just aren't part of our folklore.

(M: Also, realistically, these series deal with individuals who quickly perish after their bodies are used as hosts for the pathogen in question, rather than the pathogen reanimating a corpse. Although the victims are initially alive, they soon succumb to the pathogen/ parasite and their organic matter then becomes an infectious vector for the disease. It should be noted, infecting ordinary, living humans with viruses to grant them elevated powers, is not only a major violation of consent and defies all recommendations made by the Belmont Report (in addition to a number of articles in the Hague Convention w/r to the use of WMDs) and is unlikely to be approved by any reputable university’s IRB committee. This is why the Umbrella Corporation are naughty, naughty little children, and honestly, someone should have assassinated Wesker for the grant money.)

R: wwww

From what I know Vietnam didn’t have a zombie movie until 2022. 

R: Do you mean a domestically produced zombie movie? Because Vietnamese people have most certainly had access to zombie movies for a long time. The Hong Kong film Mr. Vampire (1985) was a gigantic hit in Southeast Asia; you can find a gazillion copies of this movie online with Viet subs, with people commenting on how nostalgic this movie is or how they loved it as a kid. 

M: “Didn’t have a [domestic] zombie movie” is not necessarily the same thing as “Would not have made one if the opportunity had arisen.” None of us here are personifications of the Vietnamese film industry, I think it’s safe to say we couldn’t know. Correlation is not causation. It’s important to do your research thoroughly, and not use minor facts to craft a narrative based on your own assumptions.

(R: …Also, I did find a 2017 music video for “Game Over” by the Vietnamese idol Thanh Duy which features… a zombie apocalypse.)

(R: The MV has a very campy horror aesthetic and zombie backup dancers (which I love, everyone please watch this lol). But the scenes at the beginning and end where people are biting their fingers watching a threatening news report clearly establish that the zombies are considered a threat.)

So at one point, she laughs about the idea and remarks how ridiculous it is to think zombies could end the world. What I’m struggling with are other ways to show her attitude on the issue because I’d assume most non-Japanese readers wouldn’t get why she thinks like that. Are there any other ways to show why she thinks this way, especially ones that might resonate more with a Japanese reader?

R: The problem is this does not resonate in the first place. Your line of thinking is too Sapir-Whorf-adjacent. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, otherwise known as linguistic relativity theory, claims that language shapes cognition—that you can’t conceive of something if you can’t express it in your language. This is a very weak theory that you can easily bring evidence against: think of the last time you felt an emotion you had a hard time putting into words; just because you didn’t have the language for it doesn’t mean that you didn’t feel it, nor does it mean that you won’t be able to understand or recognize it if you feel it again. Similarly, it’s not a sound assumption to say that if some kind of subject matter does not exist in a culture, then people of that culture couldn't possibly conceive of it. This excerpt from linguist Laura Bailey sums it up quite well. 

M: Just because ghosts may be more culturally relevant doesn’t mean that zombies (or vampires, or whatever) are nonexistent in a Japanese or Vietnamese person’s imagination when it comes to horror and disaster.

R: Really,  if anything, Japanese people are much more attuned to how easily a society’s infrastructure can be destroyed by a disruptive force without adequate preparation. Japan is natural disaster central. A Japanese person would know better than anyone that if you aren’t prepared for a zombie epidemic—yeah it’s gonna be bad. 

M: Earthquakes, tsunami, typhoon, floods: Japan has robust disaster infrastructure out of necessity. 防災 or bousai, meaning disaster preparedness is a common part of daily life, including drills at workplaces, schools, and community organizations. Local government and community agencies are always looking for ways to make disaster and pandemic preparedness relevant to the public.

M: Might “zombie apocalypse prep as a proxy for disaster prep” be humorous in an ironic, self-deprecating way? Sure, but it’s not like Japanese people are innately different from non-Japanese people. Rather, by being a relatively well-off country practiced at disaster preparation with more experience than most parts of the world with many different types of disasters (and the accompanying infrastructure), it likely would seem more odd to most Japanese people within Japan to not handle a zombie apocalypse rather like might one handle a combination of a WMD/ chemical disaster+pandemic+civil unrest (all of which at least some part of Japan has experienced). Enjoy this very long, slightly dry video on COVID-19 safety procedures and preparedness using the framing device of surviving a zombie apocalypse.

M: Living in Los Angeles, I’ve often experienced similar tactics. We do a fair amount of advance and rehearsed disaster prep here as well. In elementary school, the first and last days of class were always for packing and unpacking home-made disaster packs, and “zombie apocalypse” simulations have been around since I was in middle school for all kinds of drills, including active shooter drills, like the one shown in this LAT article. The line between “prepper” and “well prepared” really comes down to degree of anxiety and zeal. So, it wouldn’t be just Japanese people who might not be able to resonate with your scene. The same could be said for anyone who lives somewhere with a robust disaster prevention culture.

M: A zombie apocalypse is not “real” in the sense of being a tangible threat that the majority of the world lives in fear of waking up to (At least, for the mental health of most people, I hope so). Rather, zombie apocalypse narratives are compelling to people because of the feelings of vague, existential dread they provoke: of isolation, paranoia, dwindling resources, and a definite end to everything familiar. I encourage you to stop thinking of the way Japanese people and non-Japanese people think about vague, existential dread as incomprehensible to each other. What would you think about zombies if they actually had a chance of existing in your world? That’s probably how most Japanese people would feel about them, too.

#Youtube #asks #japanese #vietnamese #cultural differences #cultural relativism #linguistic relativity #zombies #sci fi #science fiction #necromancy #death #funerary customs #funeral #ghosts #vampires #folklore #natural disasters #disaster preparedness #rina says stan thanh duy #writeblr

[hekateinhell]

I love the absolute drama with which Armand and Lestat describe falling for Louis de Pointe du Lac — it was something they experienced in such a similar way!

"I felt fatally in love with Louis" ~ Lestat, TVL

"I fell in love with him hopelessly" ~ Armand, TVA

As if they both knew right then and there that that sad, wet man was going to have them in a chokehold for the rest of their immortal existence.

#i love a good linguistic parallel 🤧 #vc #the vampire chronicles #louis de pointe du lac #lestat de lioncourt #armand #lestat/louis #armand/louis #quotes

[tower-of-hana]

Linguists are like vampires but instead of drinking your blood they harass you about a weird irregularity in your speech that no one else would have noticed.

#linguistics #linguistic #languages #shitpost #lingblr #linguist shitpost #vampires

[wormonastringtheory]

"neopronouns are stupid" you're just jealous of my commitment to vampirism BITCH

#neopronouns #vamp/vamps #vampcore #vampire #vampirism #queer #gender #linguistics

[esinofsardis]

To any vampire-loving friends who are confused about the "de" and "du" in Louis and Lestat's names, a quick explanation:

These last names function like "Robin of Locksley" or "Lawrence of Arabia". Pre-dating modern last names, people were identified most often by their parentage ("Martin son of John" or "Samuel Davidson") or in the case of land-owning nobility, by their land.

(Like how in Downtown Abbey Robert Crawley is the Earl of Grantham and often addressed as "Lord Grantham" but never as "Lord Crawley". He is associated with the land he owns--Lord Grantham is probably a shortened version of "Lord of Grantham", or in French "Monsieur de Grantham".)

The important part here is that French didn't drop the "of" in these titles. And these titles either referred to a place or family line. Therefore:

Lestat de Lioncourt = Lestat of [the family] Lioncourt*

Louis de Pointe du Lac = Louis of Peak of the Lake ("peak of the lake" being the name of the estate)

*Lestat's family name might well come from their coat of arms--a lion on the coat of arms could have turned into Lioncourt

So why all this context? Well it's interesting but because it brings me to grammar:

"de" = of

"du" = of the (this is a contraction of "de le")

So both Lestat's and Louis' names are followed by "de" to indicate who/what they are associated with. Louis then has "du" between pointe and lac because "peak of lake" doesn't make sense grammatically.

These little two letter words are easy to confuse especially if you don't know why they're different. Hopefully this helps!

tl;dr it's "Louis de Pointe du Lac/Louis of Peak of the Lake" and "Lestat de Lioncourt/Lestat of Lioncourt"

Happy writing and shipping!!

#louis de pointe du lac #lestat de lioncourt #iwtv #amc interview with the vampire #interview with the vampire #loustat #louis #lestat #linguistics #french #esin speaks

[dedalvs]

#conlang #got #hotd #the100 #clexa #trigedasleng #dothraki #valyrian #defiance #vampire academy #motherland #menishe #language #linguistics #let's go

[meddling-in-horror]

I Changed My Thesis

Originally, my history BA thesis was going to be deconstructing the Starz/Sky TV collaboration Penny Dreadful. 

I changed it.

I had been forcing my way through the show to make notes for my work, but then one day I started thinking about Bill Gunn’s ‘Ganja and Hess’ way too much and it changed my whole concept.

Now, I’ll be writing my thesis on linguistic violence against women and the monstrous feminine in horror, examining terminology used against women and how those words are contextualized historically within horror as a genre. 

There’s a lot of material to cover in this paper, as I already have over 50 sources, but to give an idea of what I’m looking at, the following are the movies I’ll be using for the paper:

Am I Quiet Enough For You Yet? Audition (1999) Last Night in Soho (2021)

...Will Still Become a Wolf When the Autumn Moon is Bright Ginger Snaps (2000) The Company of Wolves (1984)

I Drank All the Blood That I Could Ganja and Hess (1973) A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

Holy Water Cannot Help You Now Def By Temptation (1990) Possession (1981)

They Come to Drink, They Come to Dance, to Sacrifice a Human Heart The Lure (2015) She-Creature (2001)

Burned But Not Buried This Time The Craft (1996) The VVitch (2015)

So stay tuned for ‘At Least You’ll Sanctify Me When I’m Dead: A History of Linguistic Violence Against Women and the Monstrous Feminine Within Horror’.

This is gonna be fun.

#linguistic violence #monstrous feminine #psychokillers #audition 1999 #audition #last night in soho #good for her horror #female killers #werewolves #lycanthropy #ginger snaps #ginger snaps 2000 #the company of wolves #vampires #ganja and hess #a girl walks home alone at night #demons #def by temptation #possession #mermaids #siren #the lure #the lure 2015 #she creature #she creature 2001 #witchcraft #witches #the craft #the vvitch #final girls in film

[keeennyyyyyyuggghggh]

I love thinking about Daniel’s modern gay California boy slang becoming infectious not just to Armand who is THRILLED by the concept California English and 1970s/80s gay speak but also to Lestat and, hilariously, Louis.

It slowly starts seeping into their daily archaic vernacular. Lestat is a particular fan of vocal fry. Armand calls everyone “she.”

They all lose it when Louis refers to Lestat and Armand as “a pair of bitchy queens.”

#the vampire chronicles #interview with the vampire #loustat #armand x daniel #i feel in my bones that Armand and Lestat would try drag #I don’t know linguistics im just gay and married to a Californian and I think I’m right #I need Louis to say slay and then immediately wish for death

[coastalqueries]

something I like to think about is: if you have an immortal or long-lived character, what does this mean for their use of language? if they're interacting with people regularly I imagine they keep up with developments but like for instance do you think someone from ancient rome would be able to switch between latin and modern italian or is that old shit just gone. I cannot imagine retaining information from that long ago but some people actually have reliable long term memory. and we are ignoring the limitations of the human body to a certain degree on account of immortality being impossible in real life. less about "can they do it" and more about "how would it work?"

#drunk vampire from 600s england breaking out the old english #Linguists Love Them but the bartender is so done

[vasilissadragomir]

way too presumptuous VA TV show conlang ~analysis~

okay so as someone who studied linguistics in undergrad the conlang for the new vampire academy tv show is super exciting to me, because it's combining my two favorite things. keep in mind everything i say could be wildly wrong because we have exactly two images of the conlang to work with from the teaser/trailer. here goes:

these are the frames i'm basing my hypotheses on ~Moroian~ off of:

starting with the most likely conclusion first, at the top of the tombstone is the dragons surrounding a crest with a letter on it, and that letter is replicated in the names written in ~moroian~ above the english translation. it looks sort of like an H in english with a hat. because it’s in the crest and at the leftmost side of the second (and longer) word in moroian, that word is likely “dragomir”, but what makes it almost certainly “dragomir” is that it’s on both rhea and eric’s tombstones. as such, we can assume that symbol in the crest stands for a /d/ sound. thus, the language is written most likely written from left to right

additionally, /d/ is only one sound that we can connect with a symbol, though. the first symbol in the top word on rhea’s tombstone in moroian is kind of like a backwards N in english, and it shows up in the top word in eric’s tombstone as well, just in the middle. both rhea and eric have an /r/ sound, but if we’re comparing the placement of that symbol to where it would be in english, it doesn’t match really well. rhea and eric seem to share three symbols on the top word on their tombstones, so it really could be any of them

BUUUUUT

if you look at the second word on both, presumably “dragomir”, there is only one symbol repeated, and that’s the backwards N. there’s only one repeat sound in “dragomir”, so we can assume that symbol is an /r/ sound

the rest is a lot less clear, especially because the tombstone images themselves are so low quality, but if you look at the straps on the masked figure in the second image and on the tombstones you’ll see some little markings above the letters. that to me seems to indicate diacritics, which are common in a lot of languages (including russian and especially romanian !) to adjust the sounds words make, particularly vowels

in addition to the presumed diacritics, the symbol shapes themselves as well as the confirmed used of specific russian vocabulary (molnija, burya, etc), indicate that the language will be rooted in russian and/or romanian. it’s also a lot easier to build a conlang based on one (or more) established language(s), and it fits the heavy influence of russian/romanian culture and history that exists for the moroi in the books. so, i’m assuming that beyond the orthography (writing system), any spoken elements we get of the language will bear some resemblance to russian and/or romanian

tl;dr: the language will probably be read left to right, we can guess at a few of the consonant symbols already, it will likely use diacritics, and based on those factors, confirmed russian vocabulary, the orthography and symbols in use, the source text, and how much easier it is to build a conlang using an existing language, Moroian is likely rooted in russian/romanian

if you made it this far, congrats, you should definitely consider studying linguistics, because this is the type of stuff you do all the time with real (and made up!) languages and it's super fun! also if someone knows the resident vampire academy tv show linguist plz introduce me because i have SO MANY QUESTIONS for the person with my literal dream job

#va #vampire academy #vampire academy tv show #vampire academy show #russian #romanian #constructed language #conlang #bloodlines #va bloodlines #linguistics #language #lissa dragomir #rose hathaway #dmitri belikov #christian ozera #romitri #dragozera #moroian

[swashbucklery]

OK I have watched the pilot of Interview With The Vampire and:

1) I’m going to go semi-feral over the costumes and sets alone the aesthetics are: magnifique.

2) It’s perfect.

3) Look I know that it’s got boys I know it’s problematic they are not uwu at all they in fact murder each other in the pilot but it’s also like. Extremely queer in a way that I feel but can’t fully articulate, a beautiful salve to the everyone is beautiful but no one is horny phenomenon of a lot of ~canon media~ and feels really like. Every unhinged Tumblr post about the complex aesthetics of vampirism and romance and desire and and the complexities of queering religious symbolism, yet also they’ve made the choice to have these lads just. Absolutely covered in body fluids at all times A++ gaying.

4) This is a serious question is there a resource out there with timestamps for some of the gore? I am planning to keep watching but I am Sensitive (tm) and I’d love to be prepped for some of the more intense moments. Obviously I’m fine with a generous amount of prop blood but anything where like. Limbs are coming off, organs are being punched through etc, I would love to be forewarned.

#also prepare 4 me to either watch this extremely slowly #or extremely quickly #i have my first cold since 2020 (not covid) and i am VERY out of practice #will i spend all day napping or will i watch 8 hours of gay vampires doing intricate social rituals who can say #also i am fascinated by like #and i know you all are american you're going to be like YEAH IT'S JUST NORMAL but #comparing and contrasting the different french colonial cultures bc i'm very familiar with the history of quebec but not of new orleans #i would like this show to come with several supplementary books please #one on costume design & wallpaper #and one on the linguistic historical research and context of the pilot specifically #give it #interview with the vampire 2022: they're fucking edition #iwtv spoilers

[tower-of-hana]

#linguistics #linguistic #languages #shitpost #lingblr #linguist shitpost #conlang #conlanging #constructed language #conlangs #Vampire #Werewolf #lesbian #transgender

[octopustoaster]

Told my mom that I applied to a fellowship to study lesbian vampire representation in modern media and she sighed and went “are you trying to become the world’s leading expert in lesbian vampires? Your room is filled with books on it, you’ve written a dozen papers, you’ve taught a class, and now you’re applying to a fellowship. If people ask me what my son does for a living am I going to have to say he studies lesbian vampires?” Like yes sorry that is what the answer will be <3 Don’t worry mom when I finish my fellowship and publish my book on lesbian vampires that 3 academics will buy you’ll have something to show for raising me.

#I do think it’s especially funny because #I’m majoring in mathematics and linguistics #I just do my film/queer theory for fun #yet that’s the thing I keep getting jobs/money for #and people say it’s easier to get opportunities in STEM #academia #lesbian vampire #lgbt

[countv0ncunt]

why isn't V next to Z in the alphabet :/

#serious linguistics question #i always scroll down by Z in my playlists when im looking for vampire songs 🤦🏻‍♀️

[lestatisprince]

Okay but does the modem french we are used to hearing today even sound like 18th century french? Genuinely curious.

#interview with the vampire #amc interview with the vampire #lestat de lioncourt #linguistics #the french language #history #clearing out drafts

[nocticola]

Angel you’re a fucking vampire not a linguist 17/?: Primordial Sanskrit Angel: After the Fall #2

#angel(us) #angel you're a vampire not a fucking linguist #angel after the fall #angel atf #angel comics #angel you're a fucking vampire not a linguist