That takes the biscuit. Let’s make a squib for a horror magazine. So there’s nothing left to do for me but to return to the story of my family – and get back to the roots which lie in the land of evil, exactly where Bram Stoker let the demon rise from the dead – in Romania …
First of all: I might have enough of what you call migration background. Thanks to being born in northern Germany – time after my family crossed the border of the former iron curtain – I never learnt to know the true promise of the pandemonian language. Nevertheless I was able to snap up the worst curses – just to use them during home leave, particularly in romanian restaurants when the waiter came for our orders. Finally a sad occasion gave me the idea to try my luck again at the age of 36
… you never know.
To cut a long story short: Romanian is the most latin language of all nowadays spoken languages. Anyhow, the chance of bringing a european to death is nearly 100 %. After trying very hard with two workbooks, one evening class and one not so successful dinner conversation I am absolutely sure that Romanian was, is and will be the revenge of the shepherds to all their conquerors. I’m not talking about the tons of vocabulary, but of the suffixes. Why should there only be grammatical genders like male, female and neuter if you can decline words in definite and indefinite, size of shoe and time of day, weather forecast and governance? For example there’s coffee, female, o cafea, but the coffee cafeaua. It’s o pâine, the female bread, but pâinea (the bread). Dogs are cute. Former male un câine, a dog, becomes câinele. A gentleman, un domn, becomes because of the suffix domnul. You can spend the whole day with declining words and their suffixes -ul, -a, ea, -ua, -le, -riţa and so on and so on …
Maybe it’s a strategy? Perhaps the natives, from the very beginning to eternity a nation of simple shepherds in a distressing intact country, filled with ressources, blessed with inconceivable beauty, always placed endless patience. The conquerors came,
occupied, lived, died and – disappeared. All that was left were chunks of the conquerors’ language, some traditions and a good story for the bonfire. When the next conqueror happened to occupy the country, the shepherds yelled some of the new learnt
chunks at the invaders. If they staid, the shepherds just sat down next to the flock, played their flutes and waited until just another istorie or moft or povestire was left besides ressources, new vocabulary and – the well equipped shepherds. Not even
the so-called down-to-earth nation of Germans lived in Romania without interruption. But the first generation of emigrants – after the German Wall came down – has already lined up for their way back. Let’s see how long this will last …
For all who want to read the literary horror of Bram Stokers inheritors – don’t even think about it. All the books I’ve found were written by Norwegians with all the ethnic stuff about vampires, revenants and witches. By the time I’ll be successful I will
busy myself with Hanu-Ancutei of Mihail Sadoveanu. It’s an eerie anthology of the creepiest romanian legends. You can bet I’ll read the german translation of 1976, published by Aufbau-Verlag, just 1,85 DDR-Mark. I’m not weary of life!