Junior Eurovision has one rule that is particularly odd, and, dare I say unique, in the world of music and songwriting. The rule I am referring to is the one governing the language our contestants must sing in.
Firstly, this rule sets out to restrict the freedoms of artists and songwriters. The rule restricts countries to sing in an official language of the competing broadcaster. This means that the Armenian act will need to sing in Armenian, the Estonian act in Estonian, the Dutch act in Dutch and so on.
However the rule isn’t completely restrictive, and singing in a different language to the national language is also allowed…for a small percentage of the song itself. Since 2017 this has been communicated as being 40 percent of a song, allowing acts to include both a verse and chorus in a different language. Poland’s subsequent Junior Eurovision winners maxed out this ability by opening both songs with the English language.
A large percentage of the acts use this option to switch into a different language. In the past ten years 63% of all the competing songs were sung in more than one language. Of those songs that switched languages part-way through, only two of them chose not to include English in them. Both of those cases were an attempt to appease the Parisian crowd with Français in 2021
Now I’ve previously made my thoughts on this issue very clear. I find this rule an artificial construct that encourages more English than otherwise, and forced, muddled English at that, far too often. It would be far better to have a free language rule, I argued in 2020, as fewer and fewer in today’s Eurovision environment need to have their arms twisted to share their native tongue on the continent’s biggest stages.
I also want my Junior Eurovision lyrics to have at least enough grammatical sense to them that the artists won’t cringe once they have completed a couple more years of English tuition at school. Memorably clunky lyrics such as “thing what we always need” and “we all are just the humans” are trying to share a deep message but miss the mark badly. There would be more conviction for many songs if they didn’t crowbar in a language change like Eurovision songs did to key changes 20-odd years ago.
But this isn’t about what a now 35-year-old thinks about the rules of Junior Eurovision. I’ve had my turn. This is about the young artists themselves. I wanted to know what the opinions were of the next generation coming through.
So I asked them.
The Question
We now head back to Yerevan, the host city of the 2022 Junior Eurovision Song Contest. On the day before the Junior Eurovision final two press conferences were held for the participating artists (there were simply too many to accommodate the whole class of 2022 on stage at the same time). I asked the same question at both press conferences, to all the acts that sang their 2022 entry in more than one language.
“If you had to choose to sing in just one language, your national language, English, or another language, which one would you choose, and why?”
My question pushed the young artists to take a side, not just on the song they are presenting but also on the image they would want to show of themselves to the wider world. Would they choose English to ensure their message can be understood from Lisadell to Latvia, or would they choose the native language to express their art in a way that would be unique to the country that they are representing?
I was impressed by the speed in which Mariam Bigvava from Georgia replied. Almost as soon as she grasped the microphone she expressed her opinion that she would prefer to sing her song in the Georgian language.
“I would choose my national language because I love my country and my language, it’s so beautiful for me.”
David Charlin, representing Kazakhstan, agreed, stating “I’d also like to choose my national language.” This was echoed by the competition’s eventual winner, Lissandro from France, who said, “I love singing and speaking in my language because my language is a part of my country and it is in my heart. For me, it’s the best language.”
“Of course, I will choose my language,” started Kejtlin from Albania, “but I want to speak and sing my song in English maybe, because I want everyone to know what is the message of my song, because my song is for peace, and to share the message with everyone I meet.”
Of the acts at the first press conference, Kejtlin was the only one to express any response in favour of singing in English, with the aim to reach a wider audience with her message.
The irony of course here is that the rules would have allowed Kejtlin a verse and chorus to sing in English, her 2022 entry was presented fully in Albanian.
The Twist At The Second Conference
I asked the same question to the acts taking part in the second press conference. However, the bunch of answers didn’t go as expected.
Lara Trpčeska, performing for North Macedonia started strong.
“First of all I’d like to start by saying all of these languages have something unique inside of them. Something unusual that no other language has. If I had to choose to sing in a different language I would choose the Spanish or the Italian one because I really like them, especially the sound of them and I have visited those countries a couple of times.”
Now her song was one of those bilingual entries in her native Macedonian and English, with not an utterance of Spanish or Italian in the mix. For whatever reason she decided to bring them into the equation of this question, and the other acts ran away with her tangent.
Zlata Dziunka from Ukraine also chose Spanish or Italian, simply because she “really likes them”. Nare, representing Armenia, chose the same two languages as well, as they were her “favourite countries”. Sophie Lennon from Ireland went for the trifecta of Spanish, Italian and Armenian, describing these languages as “unique.” Serbia’s Katarina Savić also made the popular choice in the press room of Armenian because “it’s beautiful and I love Armenia so much”, and Carlos Higes also added Armenian to his choice of “very romantic” French. Even Nicolas Alves, who was born in the United Kingdom and grew up there until age 10, chose Italian and French because of their “beautiful countries and cultures.”
From where we started to where we finished at this press conference was one long crazy game of Broken Telephone, missing the original dilemma my original question posed.
But you know what, it was all the better for it.
Despite Freya Skye sitting amongst the other acts, and despite her song being the televote-winning bop of the season, no one even came close in this group to uttering a desire to sing in English.
English In The Future
Nine of the competing entries at Junior Eurovision last year performed their song partly in English and partly in their native language. If you had a completely free language rule at Junior Eurovision, do you think reading this article that they would have all switched to 100% English for their JESC entries? I think not. Yes, being understood is important, but what is becoming more important in today’s world is the ability to express your true emotions and story, whatever language that is.
This next generation are growing up in a world where televote heroes including Måneskin, Go_A, Kalush Orchestra, and Käärijä. Their success offers plenty of evidence that one does not need the English language to be supported in today’s Europe and to get their emotions across.
One may fear that removing language restrictions will see a grammatically weak, English-language free-for-all at Junior Eurovision. I think in today’s climate the opposite would happen if we allowed for freedom to flourish. Junior Eurovision’s most arbitrary and unnatural rule becomes less and less needed each year we progress.
The way those artists spoke last year fills me with confidence that they would make the correct decisions.