From what I know of Anglophones vs Francophones if you tried telling the Francophones they can’t or shouldn’t speak French you’d have one heck of a backlash. Rightfully so. French Canadian is part of the cultural legacy of Quebec, and the rest of Canada. Just like Spanish for the decedents of Hispanic immigrants, and huge chunks of land the country. What do you think Arizona means?
Besides last time I checked Canada was doing alot better then the US economically and arguably socially.
I think it reflects a different mindset we could learn from. In Canada I’ve been told you don’t give up your culture from where you come from, you just become Canadian as well. Yet I have seldom if ever met a Canadian that wasn’t very patriotic.
You know, I was think about this last might at the gym. I’d like to alter my position. I think I was wrong in taking such a hard line. I can see how singing the anthem in another language could be honoring it even more deeply. But there are some problems.
One is that who approves the translation. Often a translation has to take a little liberty with the language. I would think that when one has to take into account fitting the words to a melody, that even greater liberty will be taken. I could see how that might lead to a translation that really isn’t in the spirit of the original. so, we’d have a version of the official National Anthem that might not communicate the same ideas and sentiments.
The other problem I foresee is which anthem would then be used in public. I can see someone arguing that the Spanish version should be sung at a World Series game, pointing to the large percent of Hispanic players. This I would be against a million percent. as I’ve mentioned on these boards on a relate topic, I think that we should have English as our official language. and that when it comes to any government business that any other language should be prohibited and if spoken stricken from the record.
I would say to that that the nature of words and meanings likely means that many people have different views on what the English anthem means anyway. I’d say also that if you are correct, then there is a standard meaning of those words. It’s highly possible that a person singing may have a different idea of what things are worthy of singing about the country, and what deserves that respect. By utilising standard words, there’s a higher chance that they’re really paying lip service to those ideals. A person who translates the words, on the other hand, is more likely to formulate a version they agree with, and thus sing honestly.
The World Series is government business?
I would say that true allegience can be shown by how much effort is put into it. Singing standard words, learned as a child, that loads of people know and share is the respect equivalent of getting someone a birthday card from a garage and not bothering to sign it. Yes, it’s technically respectful, but it’s impersonal, it probably doesn’t convey all the feelings you wish to express, and you’ve put the least amount of effort possible into it other than not singing at all.
But at what point does it cease being a National Anthem and becomes My Own Personal Anthem.
Allegiance is also shown be a willingness to ascribe to broad, common concepts. A hundred patriots might rewrite the words a hundred different ways. That’s hardly helpful in fostering allegiance.
That MAY be the case for some, but they probably all share the common words, Happy Birthday.
Well, there’s a time to show respect, and there’s a time to express yourself in a more personal way. No one is stopping anyone from expressing their sentiments in one of a billion ways. A National Anthem is a 60-second opportunity to say, in essence, “this much we all agree on”.
I beg to differ. Those hundred patriots would have a 100 different perspectives and be able to pool their various insights and skills to make the country a better place for it’s people. As true patriots would.
Remember America didn’t win it’s independence on the American army’s ability to march lockstep against superior British and Hessian forces. It won it’s independence using unconventional thinking and tactics.
It’s the din of a million voices that make us stronger.
When it stops being about the country and starts being about us. If the sentiment of the song is directed towards the nation, I don’t see the problem.
I both disagree and think that this doesn’t work. Allegiance is about respect and loyalty towards someone or something; it is not what is ascribed to that shows allegiance, but how you show that respect or loyalty. Ascribing to broad, common concepts is no more respectful or loyal in and of itself than ascribing to narrow, uncommon concepts is - either may be shown by genuine belief and works or lip service.
Unless they’re in Spanish.
But we don’t all agree on it. Here we are, in fact, arguing about it. There are many different viewpoints in this thread, and I think if you asked all the people here to go away and write down what exactly it is they think the national anthem means, you’d get that many different responses. You might come back and point out that the worth is in the solidarity shown, the coming together of many peoples to show respect in one voice and in a traditional method. I might say that the worth is in how much effort we personally have put into thinking of what we’re singing. And you and me don’t represent monolithic blocks of peope even as two sides.
And I disagree with the either-or you’ve put up there. My very point is that by expressing ourselves more personally, we are being more respectful; not that personal is better than respect, but that in this case they are one and the same. A person singing in English especially or their first language, singing standard words, hasn’t done much so that they may do so. Quite possibly they’ve picked it up just from absorbing - I know that’s how I know my own country’s anthem. A person who’s singing it in a language they don’t know from childhood, singing words they themselves have decided best fit with what they believe - they’re the ones who’ve put effort into it.
My own personal anthem was ceated by Jimi Hendrix. (The only version I can listen to without trying to recall the lyrics to To Anacreon in Heaven.)
BZZZZT!
While that is the mythology much cherished by various persons of the American persuasion, it has no bearing on the reality of the war. The entire reason that the Continental Army was so delighted to see von Steuben and Lafayette and Pulaski show up on our shores was that they had the knowledge and experience to train that army to fight in close order formations as the only effective method of dealing with similar close order formations employed by the British. Invoking the money and military support of France and Spain was an ancient method of thinking, employed by Syracuse calling on Sparta to help oppose Athens and the Peloponnesians using the Persians against Athens. Using [del]piracy[/del] privateering to harrass the British was very much in keeping with the tried and true methods perfected by the British against the Spanish a couple centuries earlier. The mythology is fine when we want to maintain our self image as rugged individualists and bolster our labor-hating “Right to Work” laws and our emotional need to keep firearms about the house, but in the interest of the Straight Dope, we really should not be portraying that mythology as anything factual.
The family down the street used to have a Canada Day bash (prolly still do, I was gone this year.) At some point in the proceedings everyone would sing ‘Oh Canada’ in English, then heroically mumble their way through it a second time in French, everyone acutely aware that their French accent wasn’t what it ought to be, but still staggering forward, determined to sing loudly enough to let Quebec know that they are loved and included in Canada.
What is it with national anthems? I think I have heard ours about one and a half times in the last twenty years (and have sat resolutely through it). They strike me as one of the worst representations of patriotism, which is itself a bad thing.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZT yourself
Oh The American army was very dependent on French, Spanish, and even English support for final victory. It was the English being near revolting and voting out a good chunk of King George the 3rd’s support in parliament that convinced Goergie boy (I ain’t typing that out twice) to give up.
One thing that really helped win support in England was the American army capturing an entire British army but then treating them with diginity and releasing with the agreement that the POWs wouldn’t fight in any more North American wars. That action won America alot of respect back in England.
France and Spain reasons for supporting the US was simply to give Britian egg on it’s face. France was pretty ticked still for it’s losses in French Indian war. Still as everyone learns in school, France wouldn’t give direct military support to the US until it demonstrated it wasn’t a lost cause. Catherine the great emasculated Goerge over his failure to put down the revolt.
The Green Mountain Boys where famous for their unconventional tactics. The whole union army was to some extant.
I highly recommend reading Those Damned Rebels: The American Revolution as Seen Through British Eyes by Michael Pearson.
I read it in the library and it really changed my outlook on the American Revolution.
And that action did not substantially differ from the actions of other eighteenth century European armies, particularly when the winning army did not have the manpower to hold the losers captive for any length of time. It was a great event, but it was not some wonderful new tactic.
And? The French were persuaded to recognize the new country following the first Battle of Saratoga. However, that battle was fought in the standard eighteenth century fashion of two sides lining up across Freeman’s field and firing away until one side caved in. The aftermath to that was the repulse of the British attempt to break out of their positions and the taking of the British redoubts in the melee that followed–again fought with no particularly different tactics than those employed elsewhere.
Only in the eyes of later American authors. Morgan and Greene were very good commanders, but their tactics did not differ from those of the men they faced except that they were better at it. I would give Morgan high marks for his use of militia at Cowpens, but that was a one-time event that was certainly not a hallmark of novel tactics as typically employed by the nascent American forces.
I suppose a case can be made that Washington was one of the best commanders in history at successfully losing battles (sucessful in that he was always able to pull his entire body of troops out to fight another day), but his actual tactics did not differ from those of his opponents except in the quality of their execution.
“In Defense of Fort McHenry” would be a moving poem in any language in my opinion.
*"No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their lov’d homes and the war’s desolation;
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!"*
In 1814, here in Georgia, I imagine I’d be the slave mentioned above. Based on the OP, I think I’ll try to find a Swahili translation.
