NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL LINGUISTIC CHRISTMAS – Vol. 2

I think we can all agree that if there’s one thing that’s better than a compilation album, it’s the second volume of a compilation album! Back in 2020, I brought you this collection of Christmas songs in languages and dialects you might not be used to hearing them in, and now I’m back with a whole new batch! No matter if you are a Christmas song fanatic, or if you roll your eyes and turn down the volume when “All I Want for Christmas is You” starts playing, this list is sure to bring you something new and fresh to spice up your Christmas playlist! This is: NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL LINGUISTIC CHRISTMAS – Vol. 2!

Jólakötturinn (Icelandic)

On Iceland, the story of Jólakötturinn (’The Christmas Cat’) is an old Christmas tradition. In some versions of the story, the Christmas Cat eats the people who haven’t gotten new clothes before Christmas. In other versions, it just eats their food! Here is Björk’s version of an Icelandic song about the Christmas Cat.

Mano po, Ninong; Mano po, Ninang (Tagalog)

On the Philippines, it is custom for kids to greet elderly people with the expression Mano po, which means something like ’Your hand, please,’ after which they take the hand of the old person and lift it up to touch their forehead. Even though the custom itself is pre-colonial, it is now closely associated with Christmas, where kids visit their ninong (‘godfather’) and ninang (‘godmother’) on Christmas Day to receive presents – this is what this song is about!

Kurismasu Ibu (Japanese)

Here’s a Japanese Christmas hit from the 80’s: Tatsuro Yamashita’s クリスマス・イブ (Kurisumasu Ibu ’Christmas Eve’) from 1983. The song is a love song that contains the lyrics ”You probably won’t come – [so I’ll have] a Christmas Eve all by myself. Silent night, holy night”. Making a love song for Christmas fits very well with how Christmas is celebrated in Japan: It is primarily seen as a romantic celebration for young couples. The song is still very popular, and many people in Japan will know it from commercials and covers by other artists.

Bonus: Tatsuro Yamashita is married to Mariya Takeuchi, who you might know from the viral hit Plastic Love. They made this sweet Christmas medley together – it is in English, but still worth sharing, I think!

Zimova Tsaritsa (Interslavic)

Interslavic is a pan-Slavic auxiliary language created in 2006. It’s designed to be immediately understandable by speakers of all Slavic languages. Even though I wasn’t able to track down any actual Christmas songs in Interslavic, this song is very fascinating and, I think, quite fitting for this list. The name of the song is Zimova Tsaritsa (‘Queen of the Winter’). The song is made by an artist who specializes in songs in Interslavic. It draws on old stories of the pagan Slavic goddess Morana, who was the goddess of winter, dreams, the death of nature and its eventual rebirth. Her death at the end of winter symbolized the end of dark times and the imminent arrival of spring. Quite fitting for a Christmas playlist, I’d say..!

Shubho Lhaw Qolo (Aramaic/Arabic)

I also included a song by Lebanese singer Fairouz on my 2020 list but she’s such an icon in the Arab world that I simply had to include her again (and I think she just turned 90 – and is still going strong)! Here is her version of شُوبْحُو لْهَاوْ قُولُو (Shubho Lhaw Qolo), which in Aramaic (the language, Jesus spoke) means ’Glory to the voice’. The Aramaic hymn is traditionally sung at Christmastime in Christian communities throughout the Middle East, in modern times in both Aramaic and Arabic, and it can be traced all the way back to the fourth century.

Sizalelwe indodana (isiZulu)

The artist, Conchord Nkabinde, writes that this Zulu song was the Christmas soundtrack of his childhood growing up in Soweto, South Africa. In this video he gives his version of the song! The title means ’Unto us a Son/Saviour is born’.

O, ce veste minunată! (Romanian)

In Romania, there is a long and proud tradition of colinde (‘Christmas carols’). One of the most famous ones is O, ce veste minunată! (’Oh, what wonderful news!’). Here it is in a grandiose pop/orchestra version with the singer Andra, complete with audience participation and modulations!

Entãu É Natal (Brazilian Portuguese)

You probably know John Lennon og Yoko Ono’s classic Christmas protest song, ”Happy X-mas (War is Over)” – but in Brazil, this 1995 Portuguese version of the song by singer Simone (re-mastered in 2021) is way more famous. The title means ’And so it’s Christmas’. The original song refers to the Vietnam War. In Simone’s version, she instead makes a wish for world peace with explicit reference to the atom bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the nuclear weapons tests conducted on the French Polynesian islands of Moruroa.

Kalėdos kartu (Lithuanian)

Here is a really smooth pop-hit from the Lithuanian pop group E.G.O. ir HIT. The title means ’Christmas together’!

Zhana Zhyl (Kazakh)

In Kazakhstan, Christmas trees and presents belong to New Year’s – and it turns out that there are quite a few Kazakh New Year’s bangers out there – or actually just bangers, period. More on that in a moment.

First, here’s a song from last year’s New Year’s movie Аяз Аға (Ayaz Agha, which translates to ’Santa Claus’ or ’Uncle Frost’). It’s sung by singer Ayree in Kazakh (a language related to Turkish and Mongolian). The song’s title, Жаңа Жыл (Zhana Zhyl), means ’Happy New Year’!

And I couldn’t resist also including this song, the title of which is also Жаңа Жыл. It is by the pop-group BN and it’s from 2017.

If you feel like you’re getting K-pop vibes from these songs, you’re not wrong. Since 2015, Q-pop (qazaq pop) has been a growing phenomenon in Kazakhstan. Q-pop is, in particular, influenced by Korean K-pop, both in the compositions, the aesthetic, and the production value. Q-pop started with Kazakh boyband Ninety One in 2015. Here is one of their New Year’s songs, which they interrupt halfway through to wish their fans a Жаңа Жыл!

Dear Santa (Korean)

And speaking of K-pop: Here is Girls Generation with a Christmas song in Korean!

Don oíche úd i mBeithil (Irish Gaeilc)

Don oíche úd i mBeithil (’I sing of a night in Betlehem’) is one of the most popular Christmas songs in Irish Gaelic. It is unclear exactly how old it is, but it can be traced far, far back.

Gloria De Misa Criolla (Argentinian Spanish)

Ariel Ramírez is behind the album Misa Criolla (’kreolsk messe’). Sofia Navarro, who let me know about this album, writes: ”It is a musical piece of a folkloric and religious kind for soloists, choir, and orchestra. It has taken texts and stories from El Evangelio de la Infancia (the ’Syriac Infancy Gospel’) and interpreted them using typical Argentinian folk music rhythms, for example chacarera, vidala og chamamé.” Here is one of the songs from the album:

Schjedryk (Ukrainian)

As in many other countries in and around Eastern Europe, New Year’s is the time of Christmas trees and presents. Щедрик (Schjedryk, from the expression schjedryj vechir ’bountiful night’) is a classic Ukrainian schedryvka (New Year’s song). It is about a swallow that flies in through an open window, singing about the bountiful spring that will soon come. You might now the song in the English version it was later made into, namely ”Carol of the Bells”. Here it is in the original Ukrainian and in Mykola Leontovich’s famous arrangement.

I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas (“Swedish-American English”)

No Christmas without traditions – and no Christmas compilation album without repeat songs! Here is the Norwegian-American comedian, Harry Stewart, whose popular character Yorgi Yorgesson spoke an exaggerated Swedish-American English. Yorgi’s Christmas hit from 1949 gets a replay here, because it was my original inspiration for the first Now That’s What I Call Linguistic Christmas!

And last, but not least… Melkam Genna (’Merry Christmas’) from Ethiopia! (Amharic)

In Amharic, spoken in Ethiopia, people wish each other መልካም ገና (Melkam Genna) when orthodox Ethiopian Christmas is celebrated on January 7^th. The word genna originally comes from a Greek word meaning ’birth’, and of course refers to the Christ Child.

This year, a 2014 version of the BandAid song ”Do They Know It’s Christmas” has been re-released in a new remix. This re-kindled the debate about the lyric ”Do they know it’s Christmas-time at all’, which refers to the famine-stricken Ethiopia that the song was raising money for when it first came out in the eighties. The debate is relevant because, yes – the Ethiopians do know it’s Christmas. Actually, Christianity in Ethiopia has a far older history than Christianity in England, as Dawit Giorgis, director of an African think tank and chief coordinator for the relief efforts during the famine in the 80’s, recently said to the BBC.

So there are – of course! – lots and lots of Christmas songs in Amharic! In fact, here’s a whole playlist for you, full of Amharic የገና መዝሙሮች (yegena mezimurochi ’Christmas songs’)!

I hope you enjoy listening to these songs as much as I enjoyed finding them. And from all of me to all of you: Merry Christmas! Feliz Navidad! Melkam Genna! Glædelig jul – and a very Zhana Zhyl!

Maria Jørgensen is a PhD student at Linguistics, Aarhus University. She researches the grammar of Danish talk-in-interaction. She also teaches Danish as a second language and she loves music in all sorts of languages!