[Multilingual Monday] Mr. God Knows Why
So anyone who reads this, knows I'm a huge Eurovision fan, even when I bitch about various aspects of song selection, etc. One more recent change (within the last decade) has been the elimination of the language rule, which stated that a country had to submit a song in one of its national languages. Since the rule ws lifted, though there have been a handful of "odd choices" (Latvia singing in Italian, Cyprus choosing Italian and French, Belgium opting to sing in a made-up language twice), most entries are in English, followed by those who choose to sing in their own language. Choice is great, but it also leads to people who might not necessarily be the best English speakers writing lyrics to songs in English anyways.
Take this year's song from Latvia, for exampla. Personally? The song's vocals annoy me, but the TEXT of the song is what I truly found baffling. Even if you ignore the strange use of "what for" -- which is TECHNICALLY correct but still very bizarre to a native English ear ("what for are we crying?", somewhat reminiscent to a Loony Tunes baddy), you still have the chorus, which contains the lyric, "Only Mr. God knows why."
Mr. God? It sounded like a form letter. "Dear Mr. God, we regret to inform you that your chequing account is overdrawn by $75.72." I've been discussing the contest with blithwulf, and he replied, "They're just translating literally into English. It's common to use 'Mr. God' in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania -- in Polish we say 'Pan Bóg'." Huh, I had no idea, since my knowledege of Polish is, sadly, my "general Slavic" knowledge that I picked up from Russian, which doesn't really help all that much when it comes to Polish, and even less with non-Slavic languages like Latvian and Lithuanian, but certainly a large number of Ghits can attest to this being in other languages, like "Ponas Dievas" in Lithuanian. Even more interesting -- at least in Polish -- With "Mr." attached, it refers to a personification of God, and not necessarily the SPIRITUAL nature of God, and I'm quite fascinated by the separation there.
So here's where I once again open the floor -- things being far too literal to names for God and everything inbetween. ^o^
Take this year's song from Latvia, for exampla. Personally? The song's vocals annoy me, but the TEXT of the song is what I truly found baffling. Even if you ignore the strange use of "what for" -- which is TECHNICALLY correct but still very bizarre to a native English ear ("what for are we crying?", somewhat reminiscent to a Loony Tunes baddy), you still have the chorus, which contains the lyric, "Only Mr. God knows why."
Mr. God? It sounded like a form letter. "Dear Mr. God, we regret to inform you that your chequing account is overdrawn by $75.72." I've been discussing the contest with blithwulf, and he replied, "They're just translating literally into English. It's common to use 'Mr. God' in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania -- in Polish we say 'Pan Bóg'." Huh, I had no idea, since my knowledege of Polish is, sadly, my "general Slavic" knowledge that I picked up from Russian, which doesn't really help all that much when it comes to Polish, and even less with non-Slavic languages like Latvian and Lithuanian, but certainly a large number of Ghits can attest to this being in other languages, like "Ponas Dievas" in Lithuanian. Even more interesting -- at least in Polish -- With "Mr." attached, it refers to a personification of God, and not necessarily the SPIRITUAL nature of God, and I'm quite fascinated by the separation there.
So here's where I once again open the floor -- things being far too literal to names for God and everything inbetween. ^o^