Monday, November 10, 2014

25 Languages for 1 single song (Mia CHAN)

Here comes the popular Disney song "Let it go"

Actually, there are more than 25 languages for this song.
I have heard of  different dialects like Hakka and Minnan.
But why will this song be created in so many languages?
This song is from a Disney animation "Frozen".
It is so famous around the world.
People who listened to the song may think they should have a version for their own speech community, therefore they create the song in their language.
It shows the languages are somehow linked to power differential.
The minority language users would like to show their existence among the dominant languages.

The list below is the 25 languages in the song accordingly.

[1] English : "Let It Go"
[2] French (Français) : "Libérée, Délivrée"
[3] German (Deutsch) : "Lass jetzt los"
[4] Dutch (Nederlands) : "Laat het los"
[5] Mandarin (普通话) : "随它吧"
[6] Swedish (Svenska) : "Slå Dig Fri"
[7] Japanese (日本語) : "レット・イット・ゴー~ありのままで~"
[8] Latin American Spanish (Español americano) : "Libre Soy"
[9] Polish (Polski) : "Mam tę moc"
[10] Hungarian (Magyar ) : "Legyen hó!"
[11] Castilian Spanish (Español) : "¡Sueltalo!"
[12] Catalan (Català ) : "Vol Volar"
[13] Italian (Italiano) : "All'alba Sorgerò"
[14] Korean (한국어) : "다 잊어"
[15] Serbian (Српски) : "Сад је краj"
[16] Cantonese (粵語) : "冰心鎖"
[17] Portuguese (Português) : "Já Passou"
[18] Bahasa Malaysia (بهاس ملايو) : "Bebaskan"
[19] Russian (Русский) : "Отпусти и забудь"
[20] Danish (Dansk) : "Lad Det Ske"
[21] Bulgarian (Български) : "Слагам край"
[22] Norwegian (Norsk) : "La Den Gå"
[23] Thai (ไทย) : "ปล่อยมันไป"
[24] Canadian French (Français canadien) : "Libérée, délivrée"
[25] Flemish (Vlaams) : "Laat het los"

I highlighted 5 languages that I think Hong Kong people will be familiar with.
We can see English and Mandarin are included because these two major languages in the world.
I am delighted to see Cantonese is included.
It shows that Cantonese is not at a fringe position anymore.
We can see the status of Hong Kong is rising.

However, I was expecting there will be Filipino or Taiwanese.
Perhaps the editor of this video do not know much about these two countries, so he/she did not think of putting the two languages in the 25 languages.
But it is interesting that there are French and Canadian French.
I didn't know there is a difference between "standard" French and Canadian French.
It is quite fascinating to see these features.

I hope one day Cantonese will show up in foreign songs.
Just like Korean and Japenese words and phrases appeared in Canton songs :(

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