Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 May 12

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May 12

Speaking the ancient Moldavian

In the 1995 film Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Leslie Nielson's Dracula and Mel Brook's Van Helsing at some moments of the movie speak a gibberish that is stated by subtitles and Nielson's character himself at one point to be "the ancient Moldavian". Is this a legitimate claim in any degree, are they actually speaking Romanian words that could be made out, or is it just gibberish that vaguely sounds like Romanian language? --72.234.12.37 (talk) 00:55, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

I haven't seen the movie for years, but knowing other Mel Brooks movies, it might very well be Yiddish, which is a Germanic language with significant Hebrew vocabulary, and has very little connection to Romanian, which is a Romance language with significant influence from Slavic languages. The Indian chief in Blazing Saddles, also portrayed by Mel Brooks, speaks Yiddish. Whatever it is however (including literal nonsense), I am 100% confident it isn't "Ancient Moldavian". Brooks just isn't that concerned with historical accuracy as a writer/director. --Jayron32 11:52, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Yiddish was my initial guess, though, although I cannot make an estimated guess on its veracity without a clip of the scene in question. (And Yiddish likely has the most Slavic and Eastern European influences of all Germanic languages, although the similarities might still be relatively slim.) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:30, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

This discussion at Stack Exchange includes commentary from Romanian speakers, who agree it's just gibberish. --Jayron32 12:35, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

It contains a number of consonant and vowel combinations which exist only in the languages of the Indian sub-continent. Leroy Patterson IV (talk) 15:31, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure the whole film is free to watch on YoutubeThere are multiple scenes in which it happens not just one, but these two come to mind: this part where Leslie tells off the two female vampires for molesting Renfield, and this part where Leslie is introduced to Van Helsing and their conversation devolves into a "have the last word" contest. (the historical context with "They had it coming" is one of the funniest parts of the movie to me, black humour at its finest)

And yes, I would not be surprised if it really is just all nonsense in the end since its a comedy film (albeit surprisingly faithful to the 1897 novel minus the slapstick), I was just curious if anything intelligible could be made out in those moments, "Moldavian" or otherwise. Of course I haven't heard a lot of Yiddish or Romanian in my life, so I can't claim to know what Yiddish or Romanian talk would sound like. The gibberish does sound vaguely Slavic at times though, which like you guys mentioned may be an intentional play on how heavily influenced by Slavic languages Romanian and Yiddish are. --72.234.12.37 (talk) 16:01, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Or just a stereotypical take on Eastern Europe in general... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:21, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

The word that Stack Exchange gives as "Polotnik" has a distinctly Slavic ending (also heavily used in Yiddish). 98.170.164.88 (talk) 03:15, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Funny enough, I managed to find pohotnik, Serbo-Croatian for a wanton or greedy person, and gerania is a type of flower, the cranesbill. I doubt either was intentional though. --72.234.12.37 (talk) 12:43, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

I thought there were more Romanian words derived from Yiddish, but Wiktionary has only a handful --Error (talk) 00:04, 13 May 2022 (UTC).