Wednesday 9 May 2018

"Neck beard" in various languages

I mentioned in a previous post that "neck beard" in Welsh is "barf gwddf". This phrase has the drawback that "barf" is slang for "vomit" and that the second word has no vowels. Using Google translate, I have translated "neck beard" into various other languages. Here are some interesting translations:

Afrikaans - nek baard

Catalan - barba del coll

Croatian - vrata brade

Danish - nakke skæg

Esperanto - kolo barbo

Estonian - kaelarhai

Filipino - leeg balbas

German - nacken bart

Haitian Creole - kou bab

Hausa - wuyan gemu

Icelandic - hálsskegg

Igbo - n'olu n'olu

Latin - collum barbatum

Latvian - kakla barda

Luxembourgish - halsbart

Malagasy - balsama

Samoan - ū

Turkish - boyun sakal

Zulu - intamo intshe

Which is best? The Samoan "ū" is remarkable for its simplicity, but it doesn't feel appropriate as the name of a beard style. I quite like the Malagasy word "balsama", but this doesn't feel beardy to me; rather it makes me think of curry. I can imagine going to the local Indian restaurant to order a chicken balsama. The Latin "collum barbatum" is very cool, and the Esperanto "kolo barbo" sounds nice. I think my favourite is the Afrikaans "nek baard": it's fairly simple, it sounds similar to the English word, and it has a rough and rugged quality that is well-suited to the neckbeard as a beard style.

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