Number of non-English entries each year

[Fluke]

There's been some discussion on the dwindling number of non-English entries in the last few years, so here's some facts to back it up. I've decided to count mixed language (as long as one of them are English, of course) as English entries too, unless it's only used for a few words and doesn't make up the bulk and substance of the lyrics, which isn't many cases anyway.

What is interesting is not just the number of such entries, but their result, and especially if they make it to the final, therefore i've indicated it at the end of each year since the first year with two semis. The "big 5" entries don't need to qualify, of course, so i don't count them among the qualifiers, and there are only 3 of them - French, Italy and Spain - that regularly sends non-English entries, and even they have been giving it up lately.

2008: 16 of 43 (37.2%) Q:7
2009: 13 of 42 (31.0%) Q:6
2010: 13 of 39 (33.3%) Q:4
2011: 9 of 43 (20.9%) Q:1
2012: 14 of 42 (33.3%) Q:7
2013: 15 of 39 (38.5%) Q:5
2014: 5 of 37 (13.5%)

There are many conclusions to be drawn from this, one is that not just generally poor results, but the fact that they tend not to make it to the final is what has been discouraging non-English entries. And what part do the juries play in this? It seems that while the stated purpose of the juries is to encourage quality and diversity, they seem to dislike non-English entries.

 

[greece]

2008: 16 of 43 (37.2%) Q:7
2009: 13 of 42 (31.0%) Q:6
2010: 13 of 39 (33.3%) Q:4
2011: 9 of 43 (20.9%) Q:1
2012: 14 of 42 (33.3%) Q:7
2013: 15 of 39 (38.5%) Q:5
2014: 5 of 37 (13.5%)

This was really shocking....1
Not even the half qualifies every year...the juries do the opposite of what they should do. Instead of help the non-english entries cause it is Eurovisionand not Anglovision the vote massive the trash pop english songs and they let out the songs with traditional influences and native language. The worse example is 2011 when only one from the 9 non-english entries qualified....This year is even worse cause there are only 5 non english song and only 1 or 2 will probably qualify.... also Iceland and Albania who had chose and song in their language they change it probably for the jury appeal?

About me I'm very keen on these entries and almost all the years I have many of them in the final. Also this year my winner is a non-english song. At 2011 my winner Belarus was 9th in the televoting (it's it was obvious) but the jury killed it and it stay in the semi.

 

[Fluke]

So, of the 5 entries this year i consider non-English, two qualified, one didn't qualify and the two that were directly to the final ended up at the very bottom and near it, and even mighty Poland only got 14th place. I guess that's not very good this year either.

 

[A-lister]

Juries are to be blamed, their loath for everything local.

Mark my words, 2015 will be fully in English (at most a couple of bi-lingual entries) and there will be ZERO songs with any ethnic/local motives left. It's come full circle now since the juries joined, the decline correlated with their agenda of punishing everything local.

 

[ParadiseES]

Juries are to be blamed, their loath for everything local.

Mark my words, 2015 will be fully in English (at most a couple of bi-lingual entries) and there will be ZERO songs with any ethnic/local motives left. It's come full circle now since the juries joined, the decline correlated with their agenda of punishing everything local.

Moldova 2013
Estonia 2012
Estonia 2013
Albania 2012
Spain 2012
Israel 2010
France 2009
Italy 2013
Serbia 2011

Yeah, they have a secret conspiracious to destroy non-English songs, suuuuure

 

[Bluebird]

Moldova 2013
Estonia 2012
Estonia 2013
Albania 2012
Spain 2012
Israel 2010
France 2009
Italy 2013
Serbia 2011

Yeah, they have a secret conspiracious to destroy non-English songs, suuuuure

Indeed, I don't think the juries want to destroy the non-English songs, but it is a pity that so few countries sing in their own language.

For me personally, Eurovision Song Contest and languages have a close connection. As a little boy, in the 80s, I discovered via the Eurovision Song Contest languages ​​I had never heard before. Internet did not exist, it was the only way to hear songs in Greek, Portuguese or Norwegian. My passion for foreign languages​​ was born that way. I'm still amazed by the Finnish entries in the 80's, I started learning Swedish thanks to Jill Johnson, and I loved hearing the first song in Catalan back in 2004.

 

[Terence]

I already said it somewhere, but there were no , , , ... all these countries have a habit of sending songs in their own language!

 

[Quent91]

What does the Q:x mean ?

 

[Rayman]

Q: x represents the number of countries that succeeded to qualify for the finale with a non-English language(the BIg 5 are excluded of course).

It's very sad to see a decrease of languages used at the ESC. I think that a bold move from the EBU would consist in setting a new rule: 10-15% of the lyrics should be sung in the local language. If the rest of the song is sung in another language, the choice will be free. At least, this rule could please both sides.

 

[Fluke]

Updated with some statistics:

2008: 16 of 43 (37.2%) Q:7
2009: 13 of 42 (31.0%) Q:6
2010: 13 of 39 (33.3%) Q:4
2011: 9 of 43 (20.9%) Q:1
2012: 14 of 42 (33.3%) Q:7
2013: 15 of 39 (38.5%) Q:5
2014: 5 of 37 (13.5%) Q:2
2015: 7 of 40 (17.5%) Q:2
2016: 6 of 42 (14.3%) Q:1
2017: 6 of 43(13.9%)

Not exactly an encouraging trend, though "1944" and some other qualifying entries contained some non-English words, i don't count them as non-English.

As for this year, the three non-DTF non-English entries - Belarus, Portugal and Hungary, are all likely to make the final, maybe the last one slightly less, but it's still no brilliant result. And both France and Spain's entries have some English part.....

 

[Fluke]

2008: 16 of 43 (37.2%) Q:7
2009: 13 of 42 (31.0%) Q:6
2010: 13 of 39 (33.3%) Q:4
2011: 9 of 43 (20.9%) Q:1
2012: 14 of 42 (33.3%) Q:7
2013: 15 of 39 (38.5%) Q:5
2014: 5 of 37 (13.5%) Q:2
2015: 7 of 40 (17.5%) Q:2
2016: 6 of 42 (14.3%) Q:1
2017: 6 of 43(13.9%) Q:3
2018: 12 of 43(27.9%) Q:5

Alright, so with an unusual amount of non-English songs this year, the amount of qualifiers weren't any greater proportionally - but i'd say it's about fair. It seems non-English entries have a roughly equal chance of doing well now, seen purely statistically of course, which hopefully will encourage more to use their own language. Curiously, though it may have seemed it was a "trend" this year, there were still fewer non-English entries than what was the norm before 2014.

 

[mauve]

2008: 16 of 43 (37.2%) Q:7
2009: 13 of 42 (31.0%) Q:6
2010: 13 of 39 (33.3%) Q:4
2011: 9 of 43 (20.9%) Q:1
2012: 14 of 42 (33.3%) Q:7
2013: 15 of 39 (38.5%) Q:5
2014: 5 of 37 (13.5%) Q:2
2015: 7 of 40 (17.5%) Q:2
2016: 6 of 42 (14.3%) Q:1
2017: 6 of 43(13.9%) Q:3
2018: 12 of 43(27.9%) Q:5

Alright, so with an unusual amount of non-English songs this year, the amount of qualifiers weren't any greater proportionally - but i'd say it's about fair. It seems non-English entries have a roughly equal chance of doing well now, seen purely statistically of course, which hopefully will encourage more to use their own language. Curiously, though it may have seemed it was a "trend" this year, there were still fewer non-English entries than what was the norm before 2014.

Thank you for that! I just found that thread and it shocked me a Little. But it is a Little encouraging that this year we had more non-English Songs. Just out of curiosity I looked at my last top 10 list and found that 5 songs were english and 5 non-english. Let's hope that the positive trend stays next year as well.

 

[Fluke]

Okay, so this year a total of 11 entries were entirely or primarly non-English, 3 of which were DTF, and 4 qualified out of the 8 who were in the semis - curiously only one, Albania, was in the second semi, and made it. That's still worse than the average for English entries, but keeping up.

One thing to keep in mind is that the amount of non-English qualifier is (even proportionally) lower when the number of such entries are lower, because when the number is low, the entres that buck the trend and stay in their native langages tend to be inherently uncommercial, not really in it to win, so that when the trend for non-English entries comes and the number goes up, the "extra" ones that would have been in English if it weren't for the trend, are the ones that would have made the final anyway, so to speak.

 

[Fluke]

So this year we had 9 out of 39 entries in mostly non-English, and 4 out of the 5 non-DTF ones qualified, which is pretty good, only Denmark was left out. Plus that they ended up placing at 1,2,3,5 and 9, quite a result indeed. This could mean more countries might send non-English entries next year....

 

[A-lister]

So this year we had 9 out of 39 entries in mostly non-English, and 4 out of the 5 non-DTF ones qualified, which is pretty good, only Denmark was left out. Plus that they ended up placing at 1,2,3,5 and 9, quite a result indeed. This could mean more countries might send non-English entries next year....

I hope this could encourage indeed, we'll see...

 

[Ajeje Brazorf]

This year we already have a song in Lithuanian and a song in Romanian back.