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Ask HN: What is your best native song that is unknown due to language barrier?

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Re: Ask HN: What is your best native song that is unknown due to language barrier?

#21

I'm an English folk musician and it's perhaps surprising to many people, considering the prevalence of English and our modern music, that we as a country have lost a huge amount of our songs and music over the years. We have however re-entered a folk revival since the 70s and it has combined with the national pastime of peculiar hobbiests having documented a lot of really obscure things. But anyway, my partner sings…

Daft question: how do we know if the pronunciation is correct in the song your partner is singing? Given its in an older form of English and English is not well known for being spoken as you read it (like Latin).

Re: Ask HN: What is your best native song that is unknown due to language barrier?

#23

I'm an English folk musician and it's perhaps surprising to many people, considering the prevalence of English and our modern music, that we as a country have lost a huge amount of our songs and music over the years. We have however re-entered a folk revival since the 70s and it has combined with the national pastime of peculiar hobbiests having documented a lot of really obscure things. But anyway, my partner sings…

Quebecois stuff... this one is great https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyNYrmmdUd4 :)

Re: Ask HN: What is your best native song that is unknown due to language barrier?

#27
Gortoz a Ran - Denez Prigent

Muzinge - Samite of Uganda

Makambo - Geoffrey Oryema

Koloman - Sona Dibate

The Moon Over Mtatsminda - version on Jan Garbarek album

Like potato chips, hard to stop once you start...

Again, native for someone

Re: Ask HN: What is your best native song that is unknown due to language barrier?

#28
A few Nordic contributions:

Byssan lull: https://youtu.be/ogYC4LgqqnM A lullaby I think all Norwegian children have heard their beds, but it's actually Swedish

Til ungdommen: https://youtu.be/CieUTG8Z6Z0 The song became very beloved after 22.07.2011 and I think close to everyone here will get tears in their eyes when they hear it

Mitt hjerte alltid vanker: https://youtu.be/27JqZ8eEZlw Since it's Christmas soon. Very popular in Norway, although it's originally Danish

I guess it demonstrates the close historical relationship between the Nordic countries

Re: Ask HN: What is your best native song that is unknown due to language barrier?

#29
I speak Irish (not my native language, though), and there's a bunch of them. Here's some of the more traditional, 'sean-nós' songs:

Amhrán Mhúinse - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By0QM8mlr28 (English lyrics are in the description) - This is probably my favorite of all Irish sean-nós songs. It's super haunting, and made even sadder by the fact the woman who wrote the song didn't get her wish to be buried in her home area.

Coilín Phádraig Shéamuis - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOjSOAxN9Wg -- Typical song about immigration, quite melancholic.

Also, Iarla Ó Lionard does quite a lot of good work in the sean-nós tradition (he was heard on the film Brooklyn); here's one of my favorites by him - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35U1sOOjdDg

FInally, it's hard not to mention Seosamh Ó hÉanaí/Joe Heaney/Joe Éinniú, a native speaker from the Galway Gaeltacht - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrSL3YtzP_w

And, for some newer works in the language that I enjoy

An Cailín Álainn - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5l82gO7tuw

Pócaí Folamh is Cloigeann Tinn - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0L54BJFRnw

Siar go Conamara - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tywACdkAgc

All of these songs are sung by natives, which, sadly, is getting less and less common as the native speaking areas dwindle and as summer camps get millions of views translating the latest English language hit for summer school kids with awful pronunciation to sing.

Re: Ask HN: What is your best native song that is unknown due to language barrier?

#30

I would go with “Dni których jeszcze nie znamy” by Marek Grechuta: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oG6pEolAKm8

Somewhat better known Polish song from the same period might be Zegarmistrz Światła Purpurowy

https://youtu.be/A41PF4lUkrg

It was used as a score for a recent Polish game "This War of Mine"

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