iAnthems 1.0


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A national anthem (also "national hymn", "song" etc.) is a generally patriotic musical composition that evokes and eulogizes the history, traditions and struggles of its people, recognized either by a nation's government as the official national song, or by convention through use by the people.

Anthems rose to prominence in Europe during the nineteenth century; the oldest national anthem is "Het Wilhelmus", the Dutch national anthem, written between 1568 and 1572 during the Dutch Revolt. The Japanese anthem, "Kimi ga Yo", has its lyrics taken from a Kamakura period poem, yet it was not set to music until 1880."God Save the Queen", the national anthem of the United Kingdom and one of the two national anthems of New Zealand, was first performed in 1745 under the title "God Save the King". Spain's national anthem, the "Marcha Real" (The Royal March), dates from 1770 (written in 1761). The oldest of Denmark's two national anthems, "Kong Kristian stod ved højen mast" was adopted in 1780 and "La Marseillaise", the French anthem, was written in 1792 and adopted in 1795.

During the rise of the nation-state in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a national anthem was often adopted as nationhood status was proclaimed. Colonialism influenced the choice of anthems outside the European continent, thus several anthems of non-European nations are in the European style. Only a handful of non-European countries have anthems rooted in indigenous traditions, including Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Japan, Nepal, Costa Rica, Iran, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar.

An anthem can become a country's national anthem by a provision in the country's constitution, by a law enacted by its legislature or simply by tradition. The majority of national anthems are either marches or hymns in style. The countries of Latin America tend towards more operatic pieces, while a handful of countries use a simple fanfare.

Although national anthems are usually in the most common language of the country, whether de facto or official, there are notable exceptions. India's anthem, Jana Gana Mana, is a highly Sanskritized version of Bengali. On the other hand Pakistan's anthem is in Urdu. This is due to Pakistan tradition that it represents the culmination of Muslim states and empires in the region; the language of many of them was Persian. States with more than one national language may offer several versions of their anthem: For instance, Switzerland's anthem has different lyrics for each of the country's four official languages (French, German, Italian and Romansh). Canada's national anthem has different lyrics for each of the country's official languages (English and French), and on some occasions is sung with a mixture of stanzas taken from its French and English versions. The Sri Lankan national anthem was written in Sinhala, but a Tamil translation is also played on some occasions. On the other hand, South Africa's national anthem is unique in that five of the country's eleven official languages are used in the same anthem (the first stanza is divided between two languages, with each of the remaining three stanzas in a different language). Apart from God Save the Queen, the New Zealand national anthem in now traditionally sung with the first verse in Māori (Aotearoa) and the second in English (God Defend New Zealand). The tune is the same but the words are not a direct translation of each other. Another multilingual country, Spain, has no words in its anthem, La Marcha Real, although in 2007 a national competition to write words was launched.
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