Watch Your Language Blog

Linguavision

Every May, an event occurs that restores my faith in language, humanity, and sequins. That event is Eurovision.

I was first introduced to Eurovision while living in London ten years ago. I had, of course, heard of Eurovision's most famous success stories—ABBA and Celine Dion—but even my exposure to ABBA's greatest hits hadn't quite prepared me for the spectacle that was the costumes, the over-the-top europop, the melodramatic ballads, and the idiosyncratic and unilateral voting process (the Scandinavians always vote for each other, as do the Balkans, and the Baltics).

Every year since then, I've followed the contest, and even tried to watch the contest or listen to it online when I could; last year we were saved by a free hour of it on the Greek cable channel here in New York. We even developed our own scoring sheets in our household to keep track of our favorites. Last year, my 12 points (the top score you can give) went to Russia's Dima Bilan, while my husband picked the winners, Finland's Lordi (and what a spectacle they were).

This past weekend was Eurovision 2007, held in Helsinki. I was out of town, so I had to rely on what I'd seen of the build-up online to make any judgment. I was pleased to see Serbia's melodramatic ballad "Molitva" ("Prayer") win top prize—one of the few songs sung in the entrant's native language.

Language has been a big issue throughout the history of Eurovision. Apparently, from 1966 to 1973 and from 1977 to 1999, it was mandatory for entrants to sing in their national language. In the language-lenient interim period, ABBA took advantage of the relaxed rules to win with "Waterloo" in 1974. Had they been subject to the native language rule, I wonder if this version of the song might have won anyway.

Almost all of the Eurovision entries now, however, are in English. There are a few exceptions of countries singing in their native languages, and even some quirky language choices: Latvians presented a song in Italian, and the Norwegians sang in Spanish and English. Because that makes perfect sense. The linguistic cake topper was Romania's entry "Liubi, Liubi, I Love You". Though it only finished in 13th place, it was quite the language lesson, each verse offering the same text in a new language: English, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French, and Romanian.

With Serbia's win, though, maybe more countries will have faith in their own language. Serbia proved that you don't need English (or sequins, for that matter) to win this contest, just a good set of pipes and a catchy ballad. 12 points for that. (SUZANNE)


May 16, 2007