The Pathfinder RPG recently released game statistics for the chupacabra. I figured, however, that it would seem more “fantasy” if its name was in Latin rather than Spanish.
So, exactly how would you say “sucker of goats” in Latin?
Caprimulgus. Both chupacabra and caprimulgus, when applied to animals, have their origins in the folk belief that dry goats (and in other cases, cows) were the result of animals who drained them of their milk (and in other cases, other precious vital fluids) before the farmers could.
Back to the Spanish for a minute: chupacabras is the correct word. To describe one goatsucker. It’s a compound: chupa means sucks & cabras means goats.
Compare with Matamoros–from Santiago Matomoros (St James the Moor Killer). Again: mata means kills & moros means Moors.
In an ad for a Border dive, I found a Tex-Mex derivation: chupabrandies. That is, one who sucks down lots of El Presidente…
(Back to the coffeepot; it’s thirsty work, being this pedantic on a weekend morning.)
chupacabras is the correct singular in Spanish, but not in English. When English borrowed chupacabras, it re-analyzed the word as containing the plural morpheme -s and created a new singular, chupacabra. This happens a lot with languages. I have also heard la chupacabra in Spanish, but only from bilinguals, so I don’t know if it happens with monolingual Spanish speakers.
Family Caprimulgidae.
Mactē, Dr. Drake et aliī. I had no idea there was such a precedent.
On this general subject, however, let me say that chupacabra is a pretty nifty name in iteslf, so I’d hardly spurn it. Furthermore, generally in D&D I find it useful to treat Latin as the model for whatever ancient language magical texts are written in, with Greek providing the analog of something secondary if that comes up in your campaign. Furthermore, Old English is great for Dwarven and ‘runic’ business.
But for just naming a monster, frankly, D&D departs from actual mythological traditions in so many ways. I appreciate that Gygax at least returned to the well, however eclectically he used what he found there, and was specific about what was meant by terms that were fairly vague in the historical record. I consider the distinction between the relatively interchangable gnomes, kobolds, imps, brownies, fairies, sprites, demiurges and so on a terrific idea, even if they’re inextricably blurry in the historical record of folklore, just as it’s a good idea to specify what counts as a ‘berry’ despite the fact that you end up discounting things, to much disapprobation, things with ‘berry’ in their actual names. This is, in fact, a them in my own campaign – that only within the past couple of centuries a new ‘age of reason’ has clarified the distinction, for example, between what counts as a cocatrice and what is really more of a basilisk.
I am thrilled to find that chubracapra has such an ancient precedent, and that is the great value of returning to the well. But as a general guideline, I recommend starting with just not jamming words together because you think they’re cool, including, but not limited to:
night
blade
fang
stalker
wind
draco
shadow
blade
Thank you.