In my pursuit of unicorns, I've managed to gather a collection of translations of the word "unicorn". Well, really, it's
not translation most of the time, since most of these simply mean "one horn". What these are is the name by which unicorns
are called in other languages.
A number of these are from Robert Vavra's Unicorns I Have Known, but many more were shared with me by folks on the net and elsewhere, and it took many years to collect these.
| German |
Einhorn |
French |
licorne |
| Latin |
unicornus |
Spanish |
unicornio |
| Italian |
alicorno (or licorno) |
Norweigan |
enhjørning |
| Polish |
jednorozec |
Arabic |
karkadann |
| Japanese |
ikkakujuu (kirin)* |
Chinese |
k'i-lin |
| Greek |
monokeros |
Russian |
yedinorog |
| Finnish |
yksisarvinen |
Dutch |
eenhoorn |
| Lithuanian |
vienaragis |
Esperanto |
unukornulo |
| Portuguese |
unicórnio |
Swedish |
Enhörning |
| Hebrew |
Had-Keren |
Latvian |
vienradzis |
| Welsh |
Uncorn |
Romanian |
inorog |
* According to a correspondant, the Japanese kirin is actually not a unicorn, but another sort of mythical beast, and the modern definition of
kirin is apparently a giraffe! I've listed kirin still because, well, tradition, I guess, but the name given
there outside the parentheses is the closest my correspondant could get to the modern usage for the beast commonly understood
as a "unicorn".
Feel free to provide more information or corrections. I don't speak Japanese (or any other language aside from English,
with the exception of a little bit of Spanish and a tiny bit of German). I can't always verify firsthand each and every translation
I'm given, so if you know better than me, hey, I'm happy to listen!
If you know what to call a unicorn in a language I don't yet have listed, please do drop me a line and tell me what it is. I do update this page when I get new tidbits of information.
