italian language course: Hard to sing in any language

The Norman Transcript

All those people, including President Bush and some disquieted congressmen, who want to ban foreign-language versions of the "Star Spangled Banner" might have their work cut out for them.

Our national anthem was first translated into Spanish in 1919 by the then U. S. Bureau of Education, and the translated version has been available on the Library of Congress Web site for the past two years.

Besides Spanish, the anthem has been translated into Polish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Armenian, among other languages. So what's the big deal?

We doubt if anyone had ever given any thought to the anthem being sung in Spanish until the immigrants included it in their protests a week ago. After all, it's hard enough to sing in English.

CBS news anchor Bob Schieffer said, considering what the anthem stands for, he believes Americans should be flattered that nationalities other than ours would want to sing it in their own language. We agree. ...

What really got a lot of people upset was that some Latino pop stars released a Spanish version of the anthem with some of the words changed. They could not have created a bigger firestorm had they burned an American flag on the Capitol steps.

No one seemed to mind when President Bush campaigned across south Texas and in Florida, running ads in Spanish and addressing a number of his audiences speaking as much as he could in broken Spanish.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, (R-Tenn.) is introducing a bill, co-sponsored by several other Republican senators, requiring that the anthem never be recited or sung in a foreign language. Of course if this bill were to become law it would restrict only American citizens. ...

-- The Claremore Daily Progress