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Topic: Eurovision
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Dominique De Bast
Film God
Posts: 4486
From: Brussels, Belgium
Registered: Jun 2013
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posted May 15, 2016 05:21 AM
Tom, the possibility of singing in English is not new (it started in the 70,s, everybody remember Abba) but has not been used on a large scale. It seems that there is a presure from "new countries" (since tha fall of communism, a lot of newcomers changed the Eurovision we knew before) to use English. To be clear, even if I hope no one has any doubt about that, I have nothing against English, I just feel sorry an original concept, that gave us an unique opportunity to hear languages we otherwise would remain unknown has completely lost its soul.
-------------------- Dominique
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Raleigh M. Christopher
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 130
From: New York, NY, USA
Registered: Jan 2016
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posted May 15, 2016 06:08 AM
English is the world lingua franca. Put a Swede, Dane, Norwegian, Dutch, Pole, Spaniard, Italian, French, Portuguese, Hungarian, Finn and German in the same room, and they will speak English to each other, because it's the only language they likely all have in common.
Still, native English speakers should learn other languages. I speak French and Spanish, as well as English.
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Dominique De Bast
Film God
Posts: 4486
From: Brussels, Belgium
Registered: Jun 2013
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posted May 15, 2016 06:46 AM
Raleigh, English is eveywhere, so the Eurovision song contest had an origninal concept. At the beginning, in the 50's, there was no written rule about language but there was an agreement that each paticiping country would use his (or one of his) official language(s). In 1965, a country (Sweden) choose English, so a new rule was added to prevent this and from 1966, a local official language had to be chosen. In 1973, a free language choice was again permitted until 1977 when the former rule came back. In 1999, the free language choice was again reintroduced. Once again, I have nothing against the English language but I question the interest of all songs in the same language in what was once a multicultural moment
-------------------- Dominique
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