It’s the time of year when doorsteps are decorated with jack-o’-lanterns and spiderwebs, and shopping carts fill with candy in preparation for trick-or-treaters. While American children and adults embrace the modern Halloween spirit, the roots of ghostly words come from cultures around the world. Get into the Halloween spirit with these spooktacular words.
Ghosts go by many names. In English, “phantasm” means “a figment of the imagination,” but in Spanish, fantasma refers to a ghost, and in Haitian-Creole, the spooky figure is a fantom. Maybe they’re all figments of the imagination, but they’re easy to find in fictional stories. Ghosts can be portrayed as kind as Casper, or as more malevolent. In Germany, a Poltergeist will make a noisy entrance by moving objects around a room; in Northern England, the boisterous creatures are called “boggarts.”
The word “zombie” has a few possible origins: Jumbie is the West Indian word for “ghost,” and Nzambi is the supreme deity (and ruler of death) in Kongo spirituality. The Haitian-Creole dialect also has zombi, which has roots in Haitian vodou folklore. Unlike in modern zombie stories, which often employ technology or a virus to create the undead, a bokor (a sorcerer) could create a zombie by controlling an individual’s spirit. (They were actually anesthetizing and paralyzing people through animal- and plant-derived neurotoxins.) While the word “zombie” may come from distinct cultures, it was the 1968 movie Night of the Living Dead that popularized the modern idea of an undead creature who moves robotically and seeks human flesh.
For other creatures of the night, multiple languages use similar words to identify them. Both Hungarian and German use vampir/Vampir to describe bloodsucking monsters, and the French use vampyre. And while many languages have versions of “werewolf”(or werwolf), Spanish-speaking countries know these creatures as hombre-lobos. Portuguese speakers call them lobisomem.
Cryptids, or creatures that science hasn’t been able to prove exist, go by many different names around the world. Perhaps the most famous example is the Scottish “Nessie,” the Loch Ness monster. Said to resemble a dinosaur with a long neck, it supposedly has flippers and can breathe underwater. Written references and supposed Nessie sightings date back to the seventh century. But Scotland isn’t the only country to have a lake monster legend. Argentina has Nahuelito, supposedlyliving in the Patagonian Mountains, with the same features as Nessie, down to the long neck.
Legends talk of cryptids on dry land. Bigfoot (also known as Sasquatchin Canada and the yetiin the Himalayas) is described as at least 8 feet tall and covered in hair — possibly half man, half ape.
Then there are regionally specific cryptids, such as the Jersey Devil,which comes from colonial New Jersey lore. Described as having horse hooves and the wings of a bat, the Jersey Devil popped up in stories when Deborah Leeds gave birth to her 13th child in the early 1700s and claimed that the baby was a child of the devil. Since then, countless New Jerseyans swear they’ve spotted the creature across the state.
Whether scientists back up the folklore or not, Halloween will likely bring many ghosts, zombies, werewolves, and Bigfoots to your doorstep — if only for trick-or-treating.
