It’s always good when we hear interesting and ‘minor’ languages at our favourite TV show. Sure, English is understood by a large amount of viewers, but you need to give credit to countries taking chances.
Of course, between 1978 and 1999, countries were required to sing in a language spoken there. So when our friends in France picked a song in Breton in 1996, it became very noteworthy as French is definitely a world language. The band was put together by today’s birthday boy Dan Ar Braz (né Daniel Le Bras). He whittled his 50-piece orchestra L’Héritage des Celtes down to him and five pals when he got the golden ticket to Oslo in 1996. It was very multinational, with people from the UK and Ireland helping his Celtic ballad along. They happened to be up against another heavily Celtic song which did slightly better. But at least we got to hear the musical language that was Breton.
Dan is 73 today.
Deiz-ha-bloaz laouen/Bonne anniversaire, Dan!