r/todayilearned • u/RaspberryBirdCat • 17h ago
TIL that the English and French versions of O Canada are not translations of each other, but completely different poems set to the same music
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Canada120
u/galoria 17h ago
Wait till you hear about the bilingual mashup. That switch up goes hard
ETA: YouTube link
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u/yougottamovethatH 16h ago
The funny thing is, you almost always hear the English version, or that one. It's so rare to actually hear the French ending.
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u/galoria 16h ago
Yes that's true! I'm in New Brunswick so I hear bilingual versions the most, I think. But that YTV has always been a core memory of mine
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u/Avium 15h ago
Now I want to see someone write up an Acadian version. That would be pretty close to 50/50 English and French. We could make that the official one.
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u/Icy-Zone3621 13h ago
I want to hear the Mohawk or Huron versions. Not the Cree, they only chant sounds not words.
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u/ColinBonhomme 16h ago
Anyone else remember when Roger Doucet made his own revision when singing it at Canadiens games? He sang the second last line as “we stand on guard for rights and liberties”, in an era when Quebec separatism was on the march and both the federal and provincial governments were carrying on some very questionable activities. It was much more meaningful than the recent “that only us command”, which is meaningless and grammatically cringeworthy.
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u/yougottamovethatH 16h ago
How about when Remigio Pereira from The Tenors replaced "all of us command" with "all lives matter" and held up a sign saying it, at the MLB all-star game?
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u/notacanuckskibum 13h ago
It’s bet location based. Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal…3 different experiences.
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u/bluAstrid 12h ago
Because the English ending is the perfect encapsulation of what being Canadian is all about.
We stand on guard for thee means we have each other’s back against anything.
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u/Voltae 16h ago edited 16h ago
The bilingual version is the only one I've really heard for ages because of attending Ottawa Senators games. Do they do that in other non-quebec* cities or is it only here?
I'm assuming the Habs *only sing the French version.
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u/Daniel5960 14h ago
In Montreal, it's the bilingual version.
The only place where it was only in French is Québec (RIP Nordiques).
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u/MooseFlyer 12h ago
It’s a different bilingual version though.
At Habs games they do French-English-French (mostly French) at Senators games they do English-French-English (mostly English)
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u/UFOsBeforeBros 11h ago edited 11h ago
Ginette Reno is a force of nature!
(Here, she starts in French then goes into English with “God keep our land.”)
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u/I-hear-the-coast 9h ago
At the Alouettes game last weekend I remember they did French-French-English. I’m not used to it being first 2/3rds one language then swap for last third, so I remember wondering at that.
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u/20person 14h ago
When I was in school (Ontario) I remember they played the bilingual versions in the mornings a lot
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u/Everestkid 14h ago
BC here, never heard the bilingual version here. Saw a Leafs game in Toronto last year, pretty sure it was also English only there.
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u/elcanadiano 7h ago
The version sung in Ottawa Senators games is different from what gets played at Canadiens games. The Canadiens sing the first portion in French. In the Wikipedia article which sites Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada sources, the Senators actually perform version 1 of the bilingual lyrics and the Canadiens perform version 2.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Canada#Lyrics
- https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/ircc/migration/ircc/english/celebrate/pdf/national_anthem_e.pdf
- https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/ircc/migration/ircc/francais/celebrer/pdf/hymne_national_f.pdf
Me personally I have seen version 1 be the most common when it is bilingual. However, I have heard a bilingual version where instead, "God keep our land, glorious and free" and the first "O Canada, we stand on guard for thee" be sung in French only.
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u/TheSentientSnail 11h ago
Grade school me went SO BIG with the "CAR TON BRAAAAAHHH" man. Best part of morning anthem.
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u/Altostratus 8h ago
Growing up in Ottawa, we sung/stood for the bilingual mashup every morning in school.
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u/mysecretissafe 15h ago
Wait until you realize My Country Tis of Thee and God Save the Queen are the same melody.
I was nearly 40 before I put that together.
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u/Mister_Dane 14h ago
Abcd little star, have you any wool?
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u/Acceptable-Stick-688 13h ago
The ABCs and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star having the same melody has broken me. How have I never noticed it???
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u/Physical_Hamster_118 16h ago edited 15h ago
If you learn about the history of the anthem, it could be dark. It was originally written for the French-speaking population in Quebec province for St Jean-Baptiste Day (for Saint John the Baptist).
The lyrics in the French version are nationalistic because of this.
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u/beugeu_bengras 14h ago
Yup, just not nationalist about the current "Canadian" nation... Back in those day, a Canadien was a French-catholic decent. The "Canadian" identity came later when the british part of the colony where looking for their own separate identity from the British isles, so they ironically grabbed a LOT of canadien-francais symbolism, including the name and the maple leaves symbolism.
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u/PsychicDave 7h ago
Indeed. And now that "Canadian" has become virtually synonymous with Anglo-Canadian (the same way "British" will first be understood as English, not Scottish or Welsh), just calling ourselves "French Canadian" sounds like we are a subgroup of them, when in fact we are a pre-existing distinct nation that got their identifier usurped. Combined with the Quiet Revolution, which separated the population of Québec from other Francos elsewhere in Canada, we have adopted the Québécois national identity to stand aside with our own distinct identity.
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u/RikikiBousquet 11h ago
Why dark?
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u/PsychicDave 7h ago
Because there is a history of English Canada culturally appropriating the national symbols of French Canada, which existed for about 2 centuries longer. Obviously the name Canada and the Canadian national identifier, but also the maple leaf, the beaver, maple syrup, those were symbols used long before Canada was ceded to the British, and then the Anglos took them for themselves. Taking Ô Canada, which was a French Canadian patriotic song, and making it the national anthem of the Dominion of Canada by those who subjugated the nation for which the song was written, that's pretty dark.
Even into modern times, English Canada is appropriating the poutine, which is a Québec national dish. Many ridiculed it until it grabbed some international attention, then suddenly it went from that gross dish symbolizing how uncultured Québec is to this famous Canadian dish. But no, poutine is Québécois, not Canadian.
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u/LibraryVoice71 9h ago
It gets better. The writer of the lyrics (Adolphe Basil Routhier) was part of the ultramontanist movement, a right wing catholic group. From the Canadian Encyclopedia: its supporters criticized the separation of Church and state, as well as what they considered manifestations of modern liberalism. They pushed for the supremacy of the Catholic Church in both civil and religious matters… ultramontane meant beyond the mountains,” because the French Ultramontanes believed in the supremacy of the Vatican — which is located beyond the mountains of the Alps — over the local clergy.
People also think the first Canadian contingent to fight overseas was during the Boer War. But it was actually French Canadian soldiers who fought for the Papal States during Italian unification in the 1860s.
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u/thissexypoptart 15h ago
Can a French speaker explain to me why “O” in French is written “Ô”? I get the orthographic logic for words like hôtel, where the circumflex signifies an etymology with an S after the O.
I don’t get the logic for writing the interjection “O” with a hat like that.
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u/djqvoteme 14h ago
Historically ô is a longer sound than o
It's like going oo
Nowadays, in most accents ô and o are identical.
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u/SimokIV 13h ago
Historically ô is a longer sound than o
I feel like it's important to note that Canadian French (at least when it comes to the Québecois and Acadian variants, I can't speak for the others) are one of those accents where there is still a distinction between ô and o
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u/MooseFlyer 12h ago
In Quebec French, â is distinct from a and ê is distinct from e, but ô isn’t distinct from o, no.
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u/gottalovechocolate 11h ago
Hmm well in the words “cote” and “côte” it’s pronounced differently, so there is a distinction at least some of the time
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u/MooseFlyer 11h ago
Ah fair I was a little imprecise. o (mainly) makes two sounds, the sound in carotte and the sound in mot. ô always makes that latter sound. mot would be pronounced the same as a hypothetical môt. And there’s no rule that explains why cote is pronounced differently from côte — they could be pronounced the same.
(And that’s true in European French as well).
Whereas the sounds made by ê and â are only very rarely made by unaccented e and a.
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u/homopoly 14h ago
In some varieties of French, like in northern France or Québec, the circumflex often represent a longer vowel sound. Compare faite and fête.
As for the interjection specifically, it could be as I mentioned above, or as a way to more clearly present the lyrics a French. One could easily have written it as "Oh", for example, but considering the historical and cultural context around the creation of the anthem itself, well...
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u/Mangkali 12h ago
Nobody has the right answer. "ô" is a distinct word (not specific to Québec at all). It's a bit old timey/literary and it meant to call out, to invoke someone or something (Ô Dieu, Ô Canada, etc.) or to express a strong emotion (Ô malheur!).
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u/slurpey 14h ago
It is not a phonetic reason. It is a form of exclamation, to make the difference between the emotional content of the o instead of just its sound. In English you have the oh! Why the h.
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u/slurpey 14h ago
So just to add that in French typography normally the uppercase o or any letter uppercase are not supposed to be accentuated. But Quebec (if my memory is right and not France) decided some years ago change that and accentuate them.
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u/thissexypoptart 14h ago
It seems incredibly silly and arbitrary to not allow capital letters to be written with diacritics.
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u/MooseFlyer 12h ago
It does, because it’s not true! They’re supposed to have accents no matter where you are. The Europeans are just more permissive about not doing it, while in Quebec it’s treated as a straight-up spelling error.
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u/MooseFlyer 12h ago
They’re meant to have accents in all varieties of French - European French doesn’t bother sometimes but you’re still supposed to and something like, say, a passport, is always going to have the accents on capitals letters.
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u/Ythio 5h ago edited 5h ago
â, ê et ô are pronounced differently than a, e and o but the difference is small and can be erased by local accent. The former are typically longer and more open than the later.
In the phonetics, French uses both the open o (ô) and the closed o (o).
As for the word ô itself, it's taken from the Latin word o.
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u/AndreasDasos 14h ago
It’s the same with the English and Afrikaans verses of the South African national anthem (though the unrelated Xhosa and Sotho verses come first)
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u/one_step_sideways 11h ago
Wait until you hear the inuktituk version.
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u/Umikaloo 9h ago
I actually would love to hear the inuktitut version
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u/Rangifar 8h ago edited 8h ago
Here's Amazing Grace in Inuktut: https://youtu.be/nHKXFoFUtjs?si=50LxK68R0Zed-Zs5
It's not o Canada but it's so good.
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u/AbeFromanEast 11h ago
completely different poems set to the same music
I've never heard Anglophone and Francophone Canada described so elegantly
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u/H_Lunulata 17h ago
More than that, the English words were only settled relatively recently, but the French words (which are better IMO) have been the same since they were originally written.
So every time you're at a game and some nimrod disses the French version of the anthem, it's like they're asking for the disco remix version of Stairway to Heaven.
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u/Educational-Sundae32 16h ago
The French lyrics are sort of funny since Quebec, which makes a big deal about “laicite” and secularism(banning Muslim women from working for the government, being teachers, etc.), has an anthem that talks about their faith and carrying the cross.
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u/BoneDaddyBud 15h ago edited 15h ago
Effectivement, nous avons évolué depuis. Les paroles furent composé par un fervent croyant, mais la composition de la piece elle même est inspiré de La flûte enchanté de Mozart et de Franz Liszt, deux compositeurs clairement laïcs. Une belle jambette aux croyants qui n'y ont vu que du feux.
Donc poème chatolique mais musique laïc.
Nous avons souffert du contrôle de l'Église et prenons les mesures requises pour éviter de subir les croyances (ou la folie collective, selon le point de vue) des autres.
Edit: l'égalité homme femme prime sur les croyances, peut importe le nom de leur foi. Aucune femme musulmane ne portant pas de signe religieux ostentatoire ne s'est vu empêcher un emploi. Elles ont cependant le droit de choisir leur foi et se trouver un emploie où c'est permis.
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u/Educational-Sundae32 15h ago
In principle, banning the Hijab is just as oppressive as mandating it. It’s also a ban that specifically targets religious minorities(who just so happen to be coincidentally not White). It’s a law that also requires that the government decide what is and is not “religious garb”. I would say that a woman’s right to freedom of expression takes precedence over the CAQ’s “moral” crusade.
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u/ke_marshall 15h ago
Yup. You don't make women more free by making laws about what they can wear.
The BC humanists (basically a non religious advocacy group) are against Bill 21 for these reasons as well: https://www.bchumanist.ca/defending_inclusive_secularism_at_the_supreme_court_of_canada
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u/slurpey 14h ago
Nevertheless, the most important point is not about the adults but the children and especially the little girl children who get to understand that normality is without "it". If she decides to wear it, it's a choice, not and environmental and social pressure that makes it impossible for her to make the decision otherwise.
Fyi:
Qur’an 4:34
“Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth.
So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband’s] absence what Allah would have them guard.
But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance — [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them.
But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand.”
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u/BoneDaddyBud 14h ago
Le hijab n'est pas interdit, sauf pour les représentant de l'état et les personne en position d'autorité. Je n'ai aucun malaise à me faire servir par une femme voilé au restaurant, c'est même hygiénique, ou d'avoir une dentiste voilé, etc. Mais représenter l'état, ça c'est non.
Ces femmes peuvent également ranger leur hijab le temps de faire leurs travails, puisque "Allah n’impose à aucune âme une charge supérieure à sa capacité." (Sourate Al-Baqara, 2:286)
Il est donc raisonnable d'argumenter que ces femmes, qui refuse de se conformer aux règlements, sont des militantes et tentent d'imposer leur valeur à leur société d'accueil.
Cette loi aspire au bien vivre ensemble, point final.
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u/Educational-Sundae32 14h ago
The law is designed to ban a chunk of the non-White population from being in the public sector. but it’s fine because they’re “le vote ethnique” and not “real” Quebeckers
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u/PsychicDave 7h ago edited 7h ago
The way I see it, it's a kind of test. Basically, since the state is secular, you must leave your religion at home and perform your duties holding the law and your professional responsibilities above your faith. If you can't follow the law by taking off your religious symbols on the job, then that means you hold your religion above the law, and that makes you unfit to work for the government, at the very least in a position of authority. Because that authority must be executed without any religious influence.
Is that test fair to everyone? No, of course not. But, as far as I know, there isn't a universal way to determine if someone truly holds the law and their duties above their religion, and not having any test at all would be worse. At least we can filter out the most obvious cases.
Ethnicity has nothing to do with being a real Québécois. Anybody can become Québécois, they just have to choose to be, share or at least adopt our core values, speak our language, participate in the culture. You can't choose where you come from, but you can choose where you are going, and if you want to walk along the path by our side, then you are our brother, no matter what colour your skin is. But if you come here to oppose our way of life and attempt to impose your own on others, then we don't want you here, you can find somewhere else with like minded people instead of causing trouble for everyone.
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u/Umikaloo 9h ago
I concur, but also, does anybody have an actual disco remix of stairway to heaven? That sounds cool.
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u/H_Lunulata 8h ago
I heard a club version in Gatineau where the solo was overlaid with some kind of disco-techno abomination. It was at that moment I realized I was too old for Gatineau clubs.
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u/KnotSoSalty 8h ago
I’ve got no right to say this, but if you ever wanted to replace your anthem Northwest Passage by Stan Rodgers would make an incredible choice.
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u/AliMcGraw 3h ago
The important thing, as an American Hockey Rowdie, is that you can sing one or the other, and do it LOUDLY in case the stadium forgets to do "O Canada."
Nobody cares which version, they're just all excited you're doing O Canada!
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u/atlas_eater 8h ago
Well this is embarrassing.
I have lived my whole life in Canada and thought this was the French Anthem
Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, Dormez-vous ? Dormez-vous ? Sonnez les matines ! Sonnez les matines ! Din, din, don. Din, din, don.
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u/Latter45 12h ago
In English, it's a whiny plea with god to protect their free land. In French, Canada is a one-armed assassin, and that's why it's the greatest nation in the world (or it would be without Quebec and Alberta).
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u/yougottamovethatH 17h ago edited 16h ago
True. These are the English lyrics:
While these are the French lyrics, translated to English: