# How many languages in your music collection? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 8, 2004, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699 "2004-12-08T05:12:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/1 "2004-12-08T05:12:48Z")
This might be an interesting topic. I’ll start by admitting that I don’t know how many are in mine, but it’s a lot. Here are the ones I can identify: [ul] [li]English[/li][li]French[/li][li]German[/li][li]Italian[/li][li]Spanish[/li][li]Dutch (or some variant thereof)[/li][li]Swedish[/li][li]Finnish[/li][li]Norwegian (I think)[/li][li]Russian[/li][li]Some dialect of ancient Egyptian[/li][li]Latin[/li][/ul] And then there’s the material of In Extremo, who sing in a bunch of languages that I can’t identify. So that gives me at least twelve. ---
**Author:** ![Kid\_A\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Kid\_A\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kid_A_1)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/2 "2004-12-08T05:38:16Z")
[ul] [li]English[/li][li]French[/li][li]German[/li][li]Japanese[/li][li]Spanish[/li][li]Italian (I think I have some somewhere)[/li][/ul] Six, that’s 4 more than I thought I had when I saw the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambi_Hassenpfeffer)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/3 "2004-12-08T05:39:56Z")
In order: English, Japanese, Spanish, German, Arabic. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/4 "2004-12-08T05:43:53Z")
If you have the Beatles collection, you have English, French, German, Japanese, Hindu, Spanish, and Liverpudlian right there. Maybe more. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/5 "2004-12-08T05:45:08Z")
Nuts, I forgot Hebrew. ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/6 "2004-12-08T05:47:57Z")
Off the top of my head, there are at least 7 languages and they’re pretty much those that others have already noted - English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Italian and (by far the bulk of my collection) Latin. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/7 "2004-12-08T05:56:50Z")
English, Spanish, Japanese, German, Latin, Medieval French, Russian. Used to have some in Hebrew, but I seem to have lost it. And, of course, gibberish. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/8 "2004-12-08T06:02:15Z")
English, French, Hebrew, Spanish, Latin, Elvish, Afrikaans, Irish Gaelic, Arabic, Mandarin, Czech. I think that’s it… ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/9 "2004-12-08T06:26:43Z")
English Spanish Portuguese French German Italian Finnish Norwegian Irish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Greek Hindi Japanese Bahasa Indonesia KiSwahili Malagasy Zulu Xhosa Various other African languages, probably including Ibo, Kikuya, and several others (Music from Mali, Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo-Kinshasha, Zimbabwe, Kenya, South Africa) Arabic Hebrew Hindi Tajik Maori for starters ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/10 "2004-12-08T06:33:49Z")
Sheesh, man. Ali Farka Toure sings in at least four West African languages on one album alone. So I guess it’d have to be: English Spanish, Russian, French, Gaelic, German, Hindi, then Songhai, Bambara, Peul, and Tamasheck. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Zhen\_ka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecccb3/32.png) [@Zhen\_ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zhen_ka)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/11 "2004-12-08T06:37:49Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > This might be an interesting topic. I’ll start by admitting that I don’t know how many are in mine, but it’s a lot. Here are the ones I can identify: > > [ul] > [li]English[/li][li]French[/li][li]German[/li][li]Italian[/li][li]Spanish[/li][li]Dutch (or some variant thereof)[/li][li]Swedish[/li][li]Finnish[/li][li]Norwegian (I think)[/li][li]Russian[/li][li]Some dialect of ancient Egyptian[/li][li]Latin[/li][/ul] > > And then there’s the material of In Extremo, who sing in a bunch of languages that I can’t identify. So that gives me at least twelve. All of the languages mentioned, then Navajo, Mojave, CRIT, Havasupai, Ute, Hopi and Cherokee. But, that’s just for pow wows and dancing. ---
**Author:** ![E.Thorp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@E.Thorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E.Thorp)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/12 "2004-12-08T06:47:03Z")
English, German, Latin, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Provençal, Bulgarian, Russian, Georgian, Zulu, Xhosa, Haitian Creole, and maybe a few more. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/13 "2004-12-08T08:15:00Z")
Let’s see… English Italian German Russian Japanese Latin Breton Sanskrit Swahili Spanish Gaelic Arabic Humpback Whale A handful of other languages from a couple of _Dead Can Dance_ CDs…and if we count my “Voices of Forgotten Worlds” CD, all bets are freakin’ _off._ ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/14 "2004-12-08T08:53:12Z")
English Whatever languages are on Dead Can Dance albums Swedish Finnish (a couple of dialects) Sami Japanese Occitan Hungarian Greek French French-Canadian Louisiana Creole (or is it cajun? I never can remember) German Italian Russian Icelandic Several African languages Tuvan (is that the name of the language?) Spanish Scottish Whatever language Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan sings in Yugoslavian Arabic (I think) Turkish Estonian (I think) Probably several Asian languages from various Six Degrees compilations Hunh. That’s less than I expected. I guess I’m buying less world music these days because I can just listen to it on the radio on a regular basis. ---
**Author:** ![down\_by\_law](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/65b543/32.png) [@down\_by\_law](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/down_by_law)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/15 "2004-12-08T15:09:44Z")
english, icelandic (or whatever the hell sigur ros uses), and maybe a couple snippets of japanese in a de la soul album. but i’m not a big fan of stuff i can’t understand, unless its mark kozelek or something. ---
**Author:** ![LifeOnWry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/16 "2004-12-08T15:19:25Z")
Off the top of my head, English, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Japanese, Latin, Gaelic (Irish and Scots dialects), Greek, Hebrew, and a couple of African, Native American and Icelandic or Slavic languages or dialects I can’t personally identify. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/17 "2004-12-08T15:20:19Z")
English Latin German Icelandic Again, whatever DCD sings in French Spanish Japanese Elvish The Evil Tongue ---
**Author:** ![MrJones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb9ed0/32.png) [@MrJones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrJones)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/18 "2004-12-08T15:39:48Z")
English, Iclandic (from the SugarCubes) Italian (just briefly on a _Yello_ CD) Yiddish Spanish Cockney (_The Jam!_) We should be hearing from **Eva Luna** shortly. This is her kind of thread. ---
**Author:** ![MrJones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb9ed0/32.png) [@MrJones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrJones)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/19 "2004-12-08T15:41:58Z")
Plus all the Beatles languages mentioned in **cricetus** ’ post. ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699/20 "2004-12-08T16:11:25Z")
I really don’t have a clue as I’ve never much paid attention. But off the top of my head I have: English Russian Spanish Latin Japanese Irish I know I have others, but none that are sung, just talking, and off the top of my head I don’t know them. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-in-your-music-collection/278699.md?page=2)