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.!
GROUP | LANGUAGE(S) | COUNTRIES WHICH ARE ALLOWED TO SING | NUMBER OF SONGS |
---|---|---|---|
English | English | Ireland, Malta, United Kingdom | 101 |
Finno-Ugric | Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian | Estonia, Finland, Hungary | 38 |
Germanic | Dutch, Flemish, German | Austria, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland | 143 |
Greek | Greek | Cyprus, Greece | 38 |
Hebrew | Hebrew | Israel | 21 |
Latin | French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish | Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Switzerland | 261 |
Scandic | Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish | Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden | 111 |
Slavic | Bosnian, Croatian, Macedonian, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Serbo-Croat, Slovak, Slovenian | Bosnia, Croatia, Form. Yug., FYR Macedonia, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia | 55 |
Turkish | Turkish | Cyprus, Turkey | 20 |
Rare | Arabic, Breton, Gaelic, Lithuanian, Luxembourgeois, Maltese, Romansch | Morocco, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Switzerland | 9 |
POS | LANGUAGE | WINS |
---|---|---|
1 | French | 15 |
2 | English | 14 |
3 | Dutch | 3 |
3 | Hebrew | 3 |
5 | German | 2 |
5 | Italian | 2 |
5 | Norwegian | 2 |
5 | Spanish | 2 |
5 | Swedish | 2 |
10 | Serbo-Croat | 1 |
10 | Danish | 1 |
POS | GROUP | LANGUAGE(S) | AVERAGE* |
---|---|---|---|
1 | English | English | 5,98 |
2 | Latin | French, Italian, Portuguese, Rumanian, Spanish | 8,78 |
3 | Hebrew | Hebrew | 8,86 |
4 | Scandic | Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish | 10,48 |
5 | Germanic | Dutch, Flemish, German | 10,71 |
6 | Greek | Greek | 11,68 |
7 | Slavic | Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croat, Slovenian, Slovak | 12,38 |
8 | Finno-Ugric | Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian | 14,27 |
9 | Turkish | Turkish | 16,39 |
10 | Rare | Arabic, Breton, Gaelic, Lithuanian, Luxemburgish, Rhaeto-Romanic | 18,5 |
* = total amount of placings divided by the number of the songs
Switzerland is a good example of the appreciations of the languages:
POS | LANGUAGE | NUMBER OF ENTRIES | AVERAGE* |
---|---|---|---|
1 | English | 1 | 4,0 |
2 | French | 22 | 7,6 |
3 | Italian | 7 | 11,0 |
4 | German | 6 | 11,2 |
5 | Romance | 1 | 13,0 |
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 !