What is the official language of Eurovision? Yes, of course, it's English. But a very special kind of English. Let's call it the Eurovision Dialect. It's characterized by the use of low-level language and a very simple wording in the best case, and gramatical errors blended with phrases literaly translated from one's native language, at the worst case. The reason for this mess is derived from a very obvious fact - only 3 out of the many countries of Eurovision have English as a native language. The rest have other languages from a variety of origins and groups, and this, as so many peoplesay, is what makes Eurovision such an interesting and rich music event.
But does it, really? Because as we all know, most coutries go on choosing English as the main language for their representing songs. I will not talk about the banal issue of "countries should sing in their own language because it enriches Eurovision". I'll take a different angel of the problem, and it's the consistant lowering of quality when text writers, singers and countries choose to express themselves musicaly in English.
I'll start with a personal example. I speak 3 languages: Hebrew, my native language. English - the first language I learned at school. And Swedish - a language I chose to study one year ago because of interest in some music contest called Melodifestivalen you might haven't heard about.
I'm a very different person while using the three different languages. In Hebrew I'm fluent and therefore can express myself freely acording to my level of education or inteligence. In English I'm quite trained, and therefore also fluent, but make occasional mistakes and cannot speak about higher issues. In Swedish I'm becoming a very quiet person who'd rather listen than speak, and when I do speak, it can only be done in a very simple and basic way. If I wanted to express myself through some art medium, what language would I choose if I wanted to get a respectable result?
I'm a very different person while using the three different languages. In Hebrew I'm fluent and therefore can express myself freely acording to my level of education or inteligence. In English I'm quite trained, and therefore also fluent, but make occasional mistakes and cannot speak about higher issues. In Swedish I'm becoming a very quiet person who'd rather listen than speak, and when I do speak, it can only be done in a very simple and basic way. If I wanted to express myself through some art medium, what language would I choose if I wanted to get a respectable result?
Ofcourse, there's the issue of internationality. If you send a song in English, it hightens the chances for people to understand the song and to relate to it, and therefore get more points. But we forget that English is hardly the native language of anyone in Eurovision. So yes, a song in English might sound more up-to-date and more international, but the final product is often one of a very low quality. And the worst thing is, that we even cannot detect each others mistakes, because non of us is a native English speaker! And so we, inteligent and nice people who love Eurovision, end up praising songs that we would have never liked if they were sung in our native language. Otherwise we would be able to see immidiately how stupid they are, and detest them automaticly.
A good example for this is given by Jonas Gardell in Melodifestivalen 2003. I assume you all already know it. But the part about the Estonian presenters shows how something that might sound not so witty but still okay in English, is exposed in its great stupidity while translated to your native language:
Even worse is the opposite phenomena: Songs written originaly in the local language, who later earn a translation to English when they win the preselection and go to Eurovision. The deterioration in quality that follows is almost heart breaking. A good example for this comes from my own country's national final this year. Most of the songs contain unfortunately some lines in English - a lame common side effect of ESC songs. One song, sung by Adi Cohen, a very good singer and idol participant, proves perfectly what happens when a song is translated.
The title of the song in English is "just abot love". Sounds bad and wrongly translated. It IS wrongly translated, actually, as it should have been "solely about love", if they would want a same-level synonym. But what's really interesting is the transition from Hebrew to English at the second part of the song. The first part, in Hebrew, is quite ok for a ESC song. Listen to it here:
I'll translate the Hebrew part literaly for you to understand:
My life are calling me to go on and advance
To discover new locations even though I'm without you now
A place where I could live, a place free of worries
Quite acceptabe lyrics, I think. But than, after the first chorus, it transforms into English, and a horrifying scene of cliches is taking place:
Why do people be so cruel and start to fight
I have no answer to a thousand stars at night
Why do you run when love is here?
Now it has become a call-for-peace song with lines that are both recycling older lines from other ESC songs, and are also kind of making no sense. And I ask - why???? ahy not keep it in Hebrew and let people use their imagination in trying to figure out what is it about?
What brings me to the third example. The main two languages of the music I am listening to are Swedish and Finnish. I understand the lyrics of most of the Swedish songs (unless it's Håkan Hellström, then I need to use the dictionary a little bit) but I didn't know even one word in Finnish untill recently. This is why Finnish music always sounded to me very mysterious and deep, even when it was all about pop songs. But now I've been studying Finnish for a month or so, and I am starting to change my perspective. In only 4 lessons, we covered almost 90% of the words I could recognize from Finnish songs. I wonder, does it mean that music always utilizes the lowest level of the language? Or does it only mean that I listen to songs with a very low level of vocabulary? :-)
I'll end this post with a desperate request. If, and if Linda Bengtzing wins Melodifestivalen. Please don't let her song be translated to English. I don't really think I would be able like it anymore if she's going to sing "He can even take out the dishes out of the dish washing machine".
(Posted in my old blog on 3/3/2011)
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