Thursday, May 04, 2006

More Pledgapalooza

Meryl Yourish:

You do know that "'Nuestro Himno" is not a direct translation, don't you?

The author changed a few words. It isn't the Star-Spangled Banner.

Uh, Meryl, first I don't know what you are reading, but per this NPR story, the translation is awfully close, given how hard it is to translate songs where the rhythm and poetry of the original language can be lost, together with the majesty of the language and connotations of certain words. [Also, I plugged the Spanish into BabelFish and came up with something recognizable as the original.]

But if the lyrics really have been dramatically changed (or, if as I suspect, based on Meryl's link, a stanza was added) that's all the more reason why this is a non issue. If it's different words, its a different song, so what, exactly, is the complaint? Brown people aren't allowed to compose songs in this country?

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