Zodiac Signs in Different Languages: All 12 Signs in 20 Languages

Looking up the zodiac signs in different languages turns up something more interesting than a translation table. The twelve signs left Babylon, passed through Greece and Rome, and then split — and the languages of the world made four quite different decisions about what to do with them.

• Keep the Latin. Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, English and Indonesian all still call Sagittarius something recognisably close to Sagittarius.
• Translate the picture. German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish and Russian threw the Latin out and used their own words. That is why the same sign is a “shooter” in German (Schütze), a “bow-shooter” in Dutch (Boogschutter) and a “bow-man” in Finnish (Jousimies).
• Take the Sanskrit route. Hindi kept the Indian names, and Chinese and Vietnamese borrowed one of them — Makara, the sea-monster — through Buddhist scripture rather than from Europe.
• Take the Arabic route. Arabic astronomers translated the Greek names and kept this material alive for centuries — medieval Europe recovered Ptolemy from Arabic. Urdu then inherited the Arabic names wholesale, which is why Urdu Virgo means “ear of grain”.

Twenty languages are covered below, grouped by family so you can read them against each other.

Nordic: Swedish, Danish and Norwegian

Three languages, near-identical vocabulary, and one outright disagreement: Swedish makes Taurus an ox while its neighbours use a bull. Norwegian has two official spellings for six signs.

Full guides: zodiac signs in Swedish · Danish (where Aquarius also means jellyfish) · Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk)

West Germanic: German, Dutch and English

Two of these translated everything. The third is the odd one out in its own family: English kept the Latin.

Full guides: zodiac signs in German (with the article for each) · Dutch · English (pronunciation and plurals)

Romance: Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French

All four inherited the Latin directly. Watch Libra, where Italian and French rebuilt the name from a word for scales and Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese did not.

Full guides: zodiac signs in Italian · Spanish (and why they are lowercase) · Portuguese (Brazil vs Portugal) · French

East Asian: Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese

Four languages, one shared system, and the same suffix idea in all of them: Chinese and Japanese use 座, Korean uses 자리, all meaning “seat”. Vietnamese inherited the Chinese names outright.

Full guides: zodiac signs in Chinese · Japanese · Korean · Vietnamese

Arabic, Urdu and Hindi

The clearest case of inheritance on this page, and the sharpest contrast. Urdu’s names are the Arabic ones with the article stripped off — read those two columns against each other. Hindi sits next door to Urdu, is mutually intelligible with it in conversation, and shares not one zodiac name, having taken the Sanskrit route instead. Note also that Hindi’s dates run about three weeks later than the Western ones, because Indian astrology uses the sidereal zodiac.

Full guides: zodiac signs in Arabic · Urdu · Hindi (with both date systems)

The Remaining Three: Russian, Finnish and Indonesian

Russian translated everything into Slavic words. Finnish is related to none of the languages above and borrowed almost nothing. Indonesian kept the Latin, inherited through Dutch.

Full guides: zodiac signs in Russian (with stress marks) · Finnish · Indonesian

Capricorn: The Sign That Changes Most

Read one sign down all twenty languages and the whole history becomes visible. Capricorn began in Babylon as a goat with a fish’s tail, and almost every language dropped half of it.

Hindi has the original. Chinese borrowed it from Sanskrit through Buddhist scripture, Vietnamese inherited it from Chinese, and English is the only European language on this page that kept the hybrid.

Aquarius: A Man, or a Container?

Every European language makes Aquarius a person who carries or pours water. Every Asian language on this page makes it the vessel.

Sagittarius: The Bow, the Shooter, or the Centaur?

Careful: “Zodiac” Does Not Mean the Same Thing Everywhere

In five of these languages, asking about someone’s zodiac sign is ambiguous, because a completely separate twelve-part system exists alongside the Western one. Use the wrong word and you will get an answer about the wrong thing.

How to Ask Someone’s Star Sign in Each Language

Five of these build the word from their own noun for star — stjärna, stjerne, tähti, Stern, sterren. Korean 별자리 and Chinese 星座 do the same. The Romance languages just say sign.

Start With the Sign Itself

The names are only labels. If you want to know what a sign actually means, the full profiles are here: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces.