Wednesday, May 3

O, say, can you sing...

If you're open-minded enough for Spanish and Swedish, then you'll certainly appreciate the Star Spangled Banner in Morse Code.

Actually, it turns out that singing what eventually became the national anthem in a language other than English isn't all that novel. In the early 20th century the US federal government was promoting the song in several languages. The Library of Congress has a 1919 Spanish version online. There are currently four Spanish language versions on the US State Department website.

President Bush was heard to sing the national anthem in Spanish when he was on the campaign trail.

Other versions available (some from the 19th century): Samoan, Chinese, Yiddish, Esperanto, German, Finnish, Japanese, Polish... (via)

Of course, this controversy really has little to do with the national anthem anyway.

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