Russian “Zombies”

All nouns, in Russian, are either animate (одушевле́нные) or inanimate (неодушевле́нные).  In theory, living things, and possibly sentient things are animate, and non-living things are inanimate.  In reality, determining whether a noun is animate is not straightforward at all. 

The Russian language is inconsistent when dealing with the deceased.  For instance, поко́йник and мертве́ц, dead man, are animate; while труп, dead body is inanimate. The Russian word for corpse, мертвец, is animate, which does raise questions about their experience with zombies.