Because I want to write some sort of entry on this blog at least once this month but am not yet in the states and have thusly not yet started my boycott of the English language, I thought I would write something else that has to do with the overlying theme of this blog.
One of my favorite bands, who until now only sang songs in Finnish, has now recorded their same songs in English. Until now, their albums have not even been available outside of Finland hardly at all, but now more people are likely to be interested in them now that they sing in English.
It got me thinking that a lot of the music I listen to is in languages I don't speak, and usually the music from these bands is hard to get a hold of in the states. Do bands and singers really have to have English lyrics in order for people all over the world to be interested in them? It is simply another thing to add to my list of things that make English the world's language that I want to find out why this is the case.
In the next week or so, I need to call my grandma who is going to be in South Carolina when i'm there, and tell her that I won't be speaking English unless I say all of the same things in German first.
The other day, I was in a section of the library where people are not allowed to talk at all. My friend and I were studying separate things, and she was working on her English homework. She asked me to use a word on her list in a sentence, so I did. A library lady came up to me and said "you're not allowed to talk here." I was so angry that she said that in English. Am I crazy for being angry about something like that? I couldn't even figure out why that made me so mad.
So Lena won the Eurovision Song Contest, but I saw her scratching her head. Was this because she could not understand "imperialist" English :)
AntwortenLöschenHave a look at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/28/bring-back-culture-to-eurovision
The rules should also be changed to enable the introduction of the international language Esperanto.
Along the theme of music in English vs Whatever other language:
AntwortenLöschenI am a fan of Tokio Hotel. Obviously, they started out singing in German. They released two albums in German (Schrei and Zimmer 483) and then translated some of the songs into English and released a third album of those songs (Scream/Room 483 (in German speaking countries)). With their next album, Humanoid, they recorded a German version and an English version.
The English versions have out sold their German counterparts by a lot. A whole lot. I found it interesting though that Best Buy released a special edition of Humanoid that had a German CD as well as an English CD and they sold out almost immediately in stores and all the online pre-orders couldn't be filled for several weeks. It showed me that some people in the U.S. are open to music in a language that is not their own.
If you look at international music charts (which you can do here: www.culturemx.com), you will notice that most of the top music is in English. I believe that is mostly because the U.S. has the largest music industry in the world. If you compare the amount of albums that need to be sold to achieve gold certification, the U.S. certainly has the highest number.
I also know that for a while in Germany, is was not considered "cool" to listen to music in German. Fortunately, that seems to have changed and there are a lot of awesome German bands like Die Toten Hosen, Ich + Ich, Silbermond, etc.
I think one of the biggest reasons that English has become the international language is because of the amazing amount of culture the U.S. exports, such as music, movies, and books.
Sorry. This is a big topic that I'm interested in. I'm not sure if any of that really made any sense.
As far as the thing in the library goes, I think it might be a little unreasonable that you got mad about that. She heard you say something in English with a very obviously not German accent, so she may have thought you don't speak German. Or, knowing myself, if I heard someone say something in German that they shouldn't be saying, I would probably say something snarky back in German. It could be something like that for the librarian too.
I'm still very interested to hear how this experiment works out for you, Kat.