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Friday, February 11, 2011

Where do zombies come from?

Did you know that the English word zombie has African roots? The word-concept nzumbi (ghost, spirit) was first brought to the Caribbean by slaves who spoke Kimbudu (spoken in Angola). In the Carribean it developped into the creole word zonbi; the word also evolved into a superstition of a corpse that could be manipulated by supernatural power and made to obey commands.

nzumbi (Kimbudu) > zonbi (Carib. Creole) > zombie (English)

Incidentally, a "zombie" is also a voodoo snake deity of West African origin in Haiti, parts of the southern United States, and Brazil. I do not know if this is related to the Kimbudu-origin "nzumbi" (with lack of evidence, I tend to think not), but it is an interesting coincidence nontheless.

(http://kawann.k1.online.fr/atilye-de.htm)
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2 comments:

  1. Cornelius TarnfeatherFebruary 14, 2011 at 7:50 AM

    The medieval equivalent of zombies were called

    revenants. The walking dead also appear in the

    Norse sagas as draugar. The Chinese also have

    their jiang shi and a similar nogoodnik of Hindu

    mythology is called a vetala. I don't believe I

    have ever run across "zombies" in classical

    Greco-Roman writings, but that doesn't mean

    anything.

    According to Wikipedia, zombies are pop culture

    fixtures "appearing as early as the 1929

    novel The Magic Island by William Seabrook. Time

    claimed that the book "introduced 'zombi' into

    U.S. speech".    "

    On a sidenote, Bram stoker I believe, was the

    first to use the word "undead" in its present

    form. Prior to this, it simply meant not

    dead, or alive.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AzúFebruary 15, 2011 at 8:54 PM

    @ CT: "Revenant" is actually the French word used in the article I used as a source for this post. I am glad you put a rough date on when the word "zombie" is first used in American pop culture. Very informative comment, thank you!

    ReplyDelete

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