Hello there.
Umberto Tozzi has just released a compilation album containing a refreshed version of his oldie Ti amo, featuring Anastacia. I added the new lyrics, that can be found at this address:
http://lyricstranslate.com/it/umberto-tozzi-ft-anastacia-ti-amo-ft-anast...
I'm not sure I've made the right choices. These are the issues I encountered:
1. Both artists take turns singing a verse in their own native language, so the lyrics should actually be marked as bilingual (Italian/English). I couldn't find a proper option in the drop-down menu, so I just added a footnote;
2. I couldn't add the new song under its actual title, because it keeps the same one of the original. As a workaround to the issue, I slightly altered the title in Ti amo (2017 version, ft. Anastacia).
I wanted to report the situation to the editors, whom I thank in advance for taking care of the matter.
I'd argue since Tozzi is the main artist and sings in Italian, it belongs under "Italian". Featured artists singing in another language (cf. Eros Ramazzotti feat. Tina Turner "Cose della vita") do not change that.
Classifying a song as "bilingual" is a minefield IMO - at what percentage of the second language do you count it as such?
I was under the impression that such a rule would apply, so I chose accordingly.
Still it puzzles me: you won't be reading an Italian text happening upon a foreign word hither and thither. The parts are equally shared, so that only a bilingual listener could make out the whole meaning of the lyrics, not to mention that it would take a trilingual translator to render the song into a completely different language.
It's currently not possible to categorize a song under more than one language.
Therefore there are two possibilities: Either categorize the song under the language the majority of the text is written in, or categorize it under the less commonly known language. The latter has the advantage to make it easier to find translators for the whole text, but please only use it if you want to request a translation and if the part in the rarer language is not too short.
Makes sense. Got it.
Second that!
In the examples given so far, yes. But what do you make of single sentences in a second language? Let's say an Italian song where a featured artist sings two lines of the chorus in English. Does it qualify as "bilingual" already?
As for the occasional foreign word (which happens a lot in German rap with artists of foreign background, e.g. some inject Turkish or Kurdish words every now and then), that wouldn't be enough for "bilingual" anyway. Otherwise "Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome" would already make the song trilingual. ;)
I get your point and I couldn't agree more. But if two artists of different nationalities and languages sing together, and their parts are of equal importance, that's a game-changer IMO.
This might allow too broad discretion to the single member who posts the lyrics, but it will up to the editors to just enforce common sense standards.
[EDIT: consider the example I raised at the beginning of this conversation. The lyrics will appear as translated from Italian into Italian, and that alone sounds odd. The point is that a translation was necessary. I plan on traslating the text into Portuguese, too, and I'll be able to accomplish that as I get by on three languages.]
I understand your concern; right now this requires a conscious choice, maybe sometime in the future the developers will add the possibility to add a second language to a song.
The possibility to add a song to more than one language did exist some years ago, but there were technical issues with it. Hopefully it can be integrated again one day.
Of course. For the time being my only concern lies with abiding by the rules when posting, as I am a noob here. Hence my questions.