ESC LANGUAGES

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During the history of Eurovision there has been 797 songs in the contest (1956-1998) sung in 31 different languages.

Here are some analysis of the language preferences of the national juries during the years 1956 - 1996. Year 1996 is quite complicated because of the pre-selection. I considered all the entries which didn't qualify to the final with the position 24th (23 entries qualified to the show). I handled the languages in 10 big language groups as follows:

AND THANKS THE LANGUAGE MASTER CARLES BATLLE FOR YOUR INFORMATIONS, IDEAS ETC.!

GROUPLANGUAGE(S)COUNTRIES WHICH ARE ALLOWED TO SINGNUMBER OF SONGS
EnglishEnglishIreland, Malta, United Kingdom101
Finno-UgricEstonian, Finnish, HungarianEstonia, Finland, Hungary38
GermanicDutch, Flemish, GermanAustria, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland143
GreekGreekCyprus, Greece38
HebrewHebrewIsrael21
LatinFrench, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, SpanishBelgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Switzerland261
ScandicDanish, Icelandic, Norwegian, SwedishDenmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden111
SlavicBosnian, Croatian, Macedonian, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Serbo-Croat, Slovak, SlovenianBosnia, Croatia, Form. Yug., FYR Macedonia, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia55
TurkishTurkishCyprus, Turkey20
RareArabic, Breton, Gaelic, Lithuanian, Luxembourgeois, Maltese, RomanschMorocco, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Switzerland9
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English, 101 songs

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Finno-Ugric, 38 songs

Finnish

Estonian

Hungarian

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Germanic, 143 songs

Dutch

Flemish

German, 86 songs

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Greek, 38 songs

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Hebrew, 21 songs

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Latin, 261 songs

French, 142 songs

Italian, 45 songs

Portuguese

Romanian

Spanish

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Scandic, 111 songs

Danish

Icelandic

Norwegian

Swedish, 36 songs

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Slavic, 55 songs

Serbo-Croat, 27 songs

Bosnian (Bosniac), 5 songs

Croatian, 6 songs

Macedonian, 1 song

Polish

Russian

Slovak

Slovenian

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Turkish, 20 songs

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Rare languages, 9 songs

Luxembourgeois

Maltese

Arabic

Breton

Gaelic

Lithuanian

Romansch

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By the way these languages are official in some ESC countries so they could be with:

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Winning languages 1956-1998

POSLANGUAGEWINS
1French15
2English14
3Dutch3
3Hebrew3
5German2
5Italian2
5Norwegian2
5Spanish2
5Swedish2
10Serbo-Croat1
10Danish1
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Most liked languages 1956-1997

POSGROUPLANGUAGE(S)AVERAGE*
1EnglishEnglish5,98
2LatinFrench, Italian, Portuguese, Rumanian, Spanish8,78
3HebrewHebrew8,86
4ScandicIcelandic, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish10,48
5GermanicDutch, Flemish, German10,71
6GreekGreek11,68
7SlavicPolish, Russian, Serbo-Croat, Slovenian, Slovak12,38
8Finno-UgricFinnish, Estonian, Hungarian14,27
9TurkishTurkish16,39
10RareArabic, Breton, Gaelic, Lithuanian, Luxemburgish, Rhaeto-Romanic18,5

Notes

* = total amount of placings divided by the number of the songs

So it's really true that songs in English have better positions!

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Switzerland is a good example of the appreciations of the languages:

Swiss entries divided according the languages

POSLANGUAGENUMBER OF ENTRIESAVERAGE*
1English14,0
2French227,6
3Italian711,0
4German611,2
5Romance113,0

Finland is also a good example of the "power" of English: Finland's average of the placings in Finnish is 14,0 and in English only 9,3! And Finland's best position ever is the 6th from the year 1973 when Marion sung Tom tom tom in ENGLISH!

Here are all the countries which placings are better in English than in their own language:

Austria
Finland
Germany
the Netherlands
Sweden
and
Switzerland

Only Norway and Belgium have done better with their own languages.

See the dream and the doomed songs !

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