bilingual national anthems?

[erard at lucidwork.com]

Canada has two versions of its national anthem, one in French and the other
in Canadian. How many other countries are the same? 

Reply to me off-list and I'll post a summary.

Michael Erard



>-- Original Message --
>Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 11:28:53 -0400 (EDT)
>From: "Harold F. Schiffman" <haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
>To: Language Policy-List <lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
>Subject: Language policy in national anthem
>Reply-To: lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu
>
>
>
> An Anthem's Discordant Notes
>Spanish Version of 'Star-Spangled Banner' Draws Strong Reactions
>
>By David Montgomery Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, April 28, 2006;
>A01
>
>Oh say can you see -- a la luz de la aurora? The national anthem that once
>endured the radical transformation administered by Jimi Hendrix's fuzzed
>and frantic Stratocaster now faces an artistic dare at least as extreme:
>translation into Spanish. The new take is scheduled to hit the airwaves
>today. It's called "Nuestro Himno" -- "Our Anthem" -- and it was recorded
>over the past week by Latin pop stars including Ivy Queen, Gloria Trevi,
>Carlos Ponce, Tito "El Bambino," Olga Taon and the group Aventura. Joining
>and singing in Spanish is Haitian American artist Wyclef Jean.
>
>The different voices contribute lines the way 1985's "We Are the World"
>was put together by an ensemble of stars. The national anthem's familiar
>melody and structure are preserved, while the rhythms and instrumentation
>come straight out of Latin pop. Can "The Star-Spangled Banner," and the
>republic for which it stands, survive? Outrage over what's being called
>"The Illegal Alien Anthem" is already building in the blogosphere and
>among conservative commentators. Timed to debut the week Congress returned
>to debate immigration reform, with the country riven by the issue,
>"Nuestro Himno" is intended to be an anthem of solidarity for the movement
>that has drawn hundreds of thousands of people to march peacefully for
>immigrant rights in Washington and cities across the country, says Adam
>Kidron, president of Urban Box Office, the New York-based entertainment
>company that launched the project.
>
>"It's the one thing everybody has in common, the aspiration to have a
>relationship with the United States . . . and also to express gratitude
>and patriotism to the United States for providing the opportunity," says
>Kidron. The song was being prepared for e-mailing as MP3 packages to
>scores of Latino radio stations and other media last night, and Kidron
was
>calling for stations to play the song simultaneously at 7 Eastern time
>this evening. However, the same advance buzz that drew singers to scramble
>for inclusion in the recording sessions this week in New York, Miami,
>Texas, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic has also spurred
>critics who say rendering the song in Spanish is a rejection of
>assimilation into the United States.
>
>Even some movement supporters are puzzled by the use of Spanish. "Even
our
>Spanish media are saying, 'Why are we doing this, what are you trying to
>do?' " said Pedro Biaggi, the morning host with El Zol (99.1 FM), the most
>popular Hispanic radio station in the Washington area. "It's not for us
to
>be going around singing the national anthem in Spanish. . .  . We don't
>want to impose, we don't own the place. . . . We want to be accepted."
>Still, Biaggi says he will play "Nuestro Himno" this morning if the song
>reaches the station in time. But he will talk about the language issue
on
>the air and solicit listeners' views. He says he accepts the producers'
>explanation that the purpose is to spread the values of the anthem to a
>wider audience. He adds he will also play a version of "The Star-Spangled
>Banner" in English -- as he aired the Whitney Houston version earlier this
>week, when the controversy was beginning to brew.
>
>In the Spanish version, the translation of the first stanza is relatively
>faithful to the spirit of the original, though Kidron says the producers
>wanted to avoid references to bombs and rockets. Instead, there is "fierce
>combat." The translation of the more obscure second stanza is almost a
>rewrite, with phrases such as "we are equal, we are brothers." An
>alternate version to be released next month includes a rap in English that
>never occurred to Francis Scott Key:
>
>	Let's not start a war
>
>	With all these hard workers
>
>	They can't help where they were born
>
>"Nuestro Himno" is as fraught with controversial cultural messages as the
>psychedelic "Banner" Hendrix delivered at the height of the Vietnam War.
>Pressed on what he was trying to say with his Woodstock performance in
>1969, Hendrix replied (according to biographer Charles Cross), "We're all
>Americans. . . . It was like 'Go America!' . . . We play it the way the
>air is in America today." Now the national anthem is being remade again
>according to the way the air is in America, and the people behind "Nuestro
>Himno" say the message once more is: We're all Americans. It will be the
>lead track on an album about the immigrant experience called "Somos
>Americanos," due for release May 16. One dollar from each sale will go
to
>immigrant rights groups, including the National Capital Immigration
>Coalition, which organized the march on the Mall on April 10.
>
>But critics including columnist Michelle Malkin, who coined "The Illegal
>Alien Anthem" nickname, say the rendition crosses a line that Hendrix
>never stepped over with his instrumental version. Transforming the musical
>idiom of "The Star-Spangled Banner" is one thing, argue the skeptics, but
>translating the words sends the opposite message: We are not Americans.
>"I'm really appalled. . . . We are not a bilingual nation," said George
>Taplin, director of the Virginia Chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense
>Corps, part of a national countermovement that emphasizes border control
>and tougher enforcement, and objects to public funding for day-laborer
>sites. "When people are talking about becoming a part of this country,
>they should assimilate to the norm that's already here," Taplin said.
>"What we're talking about here is a sovereign nation with our ideals and
>our national identity, and that [anthem] is one of the icons of our
>nation's identity. I believe it should be in English as it was penned."
>
>Yet, even in English, 61 percent of adults don't know all the words, a
>recent Harris poll found. Appealing to such symbols of national identity
>to plug into their profound potency is how new movements compete for space
>within that identity.  During the rally on the Mall, the immigrants and
>their supporters also waved thousands of American flags and recited the
>Pledge of Allegiance.  But they didn't translate the pledge into Spanish.
>They said it in English. Juan Carlos Ruiz, the general coordinator of the
>National Capital Immigration Coalition, said there's not a contradiction.
>The pledge was printed phonetically for Spanish speakers, and many
>reciting the sounds may not have understood the meaning. Putting the
>anthem in Spanish is a way to relay the meaning to people who haven't
>learned English yet, Ruiz said.
>
>"It's part of the process to learn English," not a rejection of English,
>he said. While critics sketch a nightmare scenario of a Canada-like land
>with an anthem sung in two languages, immigrant rights advocates say they
>agree learning English is essential. Studies of immigrant families suggest
>the process is inevitable: Eighty-two percent to 90 percent of the
>children of immigrants prefer English. "The first step to understanding
>something is to understand it in the language you understand, and then
you
>can understand it in another language," said Leo Chavez, director of
>Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of California at Irvine. "What
>this song represents at this moment is a communal shout, that the dream
of
>America, which is represented by the song, is their dream, too."
>
>Since its origins as the melody to an English drinking song called "To
>Anacreon in Heaven," circa 1780, "The Star-Spangled Banner" has had a
>long, strange trip. Key wrote the poem after watching the bombardment of
>Fort McHenry in 1814. It became the national anthem in 1931. At least 389
>versions have been recorded, according to Allmusic.com, a quick reference
>used by musicologists to get a sense of what's on the market. Now that
>Hendrix's "Banner" has mellowed into classic rock, it's hard to imagine
>that once some considered it disrespectful. The other recordings embrace
>a
>vast musical universe: from Duke Ellington to Dolly Parton to Tiny Tim.
>But musicologists cannot name another foreign-language version.
>
>"America is a pluralistic society, but the anthem is a way that we can
>express our unity. If that's done in a different language, that doesn't
>seem to me personally to be a bad thing," said Michael Blakeslee, deputy
>executive director of the National Association for Music Education, which
>is leading a National Anthem Project to highlight the song and the school
>bands that play it in every style, from mariachi to steel drum. "I assume
>the intent is one of making a statement about 'we are a part of this
>nation,' and those are wonderful sentiments and a noble intent," said Dan
>Sheehy, director of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
>
>Benigno "Benny" Layton wonders. He's the leader of Los Hermanos Layton,
a
>band of conjunto- and Tejano-style musicians in Elsa, Tex., 22 miles from
>Mexico. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he recorded a traditional
>conjunto version of "The Star-Spangled Banner." It was instrumental. "I'm
>a second-generation American," Layton said. "I love my country, and I love
>my [Mexican musical] heritage, and I try to keep it alive. But some things
>are sacred that you don't do. And translating the national anthem is one
>of them."
>
>Staff writer Richard Harrington contributed to this report.
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/27/AR2006042702505_pf.html
> 2006 The Washington Post Company
>