[Multilingual Monday Music] Eurovision 2012
Ah, the Eurovision Song Contest. One of the original draws for me, admittedly, was that each country had to sing in its own language, so you would hear languages in song that you wouldn't otherwise. Danish rap? Turkish rock? Russian dance music? It was there.
This rule was abolished in 1973 (giving English winners from countries like Sweden -- yep, Abba and "Waterloo"), came back in 1977, and was abolished again 1999, meaning a country could sing in whatever it wanted. While this has produced some unique linguistic choices -- Belgium sang in a fictional language in 2003 and came just points from winning, and Romania in 2007 sang in six languages including its own), several naysayers dubbed the more recent editions of the contest "Anglovision" as most entries are all -- or at least mostly -- in English. Or "English", case depending upon the language skills of the writers and singer involved!
Last year was, linguistically, bland. 25 entries competed in the final; 19 were completely in English, three were a mix, and only three (Spain, France, and Serbia) were 100% in another language. French, outside of two sentences in the Lithuanian entry, was completely absent (when, many years ago, it was a major player in the contest).
This year, it's different. A ballad one, which means this year, there are a metric asstonne of ballads. And with that, more people have opted to stick to their own language. It helps that -- somehow -- five of the six former Yugoslav countries are in the same final, meaning each of those five have stuck to their guns and are submitting songs in their native languages. Out of 42 competing entries, 12 are competely in another language, while six are a mix -- an improvement over last year. With that is the debut of three langauges (Georgian, Udmurt and Mühlviertlerisch, a dialect of German), and one entry (Bulgaria) features a chorus made of a huge mix of languages. Even if the particular songs are ones I'm not fond of, I applaud that there's a greater variety, linguistically, this year, than last.
Now if every other song weren't a ballad, that'd be awesome.
Keep in mind, I post these out of LINGUISTIC INTEREST ONLY, and in no way am saying I like or dislike these entries, or how high or low quality they may be!
France (French, English)
Bulgaria (Bulgarian with bits of Turkish, Greek, Spanish, Serbo-Croat, French, Romani, Arabic, English, Azerbaijani & Italian)
Spain (Spanish, of course!)
Macedonia (Macedonian)
Croatia (Croatian)
Slovenia (Slovenian)
Estonia (Estonian)
Finland (Swedish -- for the second time in contest history!)
Romania (Spanish, for some reason, and English)
Russia (Udmurt and English)
Austria (Mühlviertlerisch)
Georgia (Georgian, then English)
Albania (Albanian, though with a Latin title)
This rule was abolished in 1973 (giving English winners from countries like Sweden -- yep, Abba and "Waterloo"), came back in 1977, and was abolished again 1999, meaning a country could sing in whatever it wanted. While this has produced some unique linguistic choices -- Belgium sang in a fictional language in 2003 and came just points from winning, and Romania in 2007 sang in six languages including its own), several naysayers dubbed the more recent editions of the contest "Anglovision" as most entries are all -- or at least mostly -- in English. Or "English", case depending upon the language skills of the writers and singer involved!
Last year was, linguistically, bland. 25 entries competed in the final; 19 were completely in English, three were a mix, and only three (Spain, France, and Serbia) were 100% in another language. French, outside of two sentences in the Lithuanian entry, was completely absent (when, many years ago, it was a major player in the contest).
This year, it's different. A ballad one, which means this year, there are a metric asstonne of ballads. And with that, more people have opted to stick to their own language. It helps that -- somehow -- five of the six former Yugoslav countries are in the same final, meaning each of those five have stuck to their guns and are submitting songs in their native languages. Out of 42 competing entries, 12 are competely in another language, while six are a mix -- an improvement over last year. With that is the debut of three langauges (Georgian, Udmurt and Mühlviertlerisch, a dialect of German), and one entry (Bulgaria) features a chorus made of a huge mix of languages. Even if the particular songs are ones I'm not fond of, I applaud that there's a greater variety, linguistically, this year, than last.
Now if every other song weren't a ballad, that'd be awesome.
Keep in mind, I post these out of LINGUISTIC INTEREST ONLY, and in no way am saying I like or dislike these entries, or how high or low quality they may be!
France (French, English)
Click to viewBulgaria (Bulgarian with bits of Turkish, Greek, Spanish, Serbo-Croat, French, Romani, Arabic, English, Azerbaijani & Italian)
Spain (Spanish, of course!)
Macedonia (Macedonian)
Croatia (Croatian)
Slovenia (Slovenian)
Estonia (Estonian)
Finland (Swedish -- for the second time in contest history!)
Romania (Spanish, for some reason, and English)
Russia (Udmurt and English)
Austria (Mühlviertlerisch)
Georgia (Georgian, then English)
Albania (Albanian, though with a Latin title)