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When Jeangu Macrooy sings the Dutch entry on the Eurovision stage in Rotterdam this year, his song will include a linguistic first in the Contest’s 65-year history.

The anthemic Birth of a New Age features a section sung in the language Sranan Tongo. It’s spoken by approximately half a million people in Suriname. Jeangu, who co-composed the song, included the phrase ‘Yu no man broko mi/Mi na afu sensi’ to mark his Surinamese roots. It translates as ‘You can’t break me, I’m half a cent’ and is inspired by a saying from his childhood. Jeangu moved from Suriname to the Netherlands when he was 20 to study and perform music.

It’s not altogether unusual for a Eurovision song to celebrate the world’s rich diversity of language. Since the competition began in 1956, there have been many examples of entries which highlighted languages the wider world may not be familiar with. These are just some of them.

Romansh (Switzerland 1989)

In 1988, an up-and-coming singer called Celine Dion brought Switzerland a last-minute Eurovision victory. Her song Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi (Don’t Leave Without Me) squeaked home by a single point over the UK entry Go, performed by Scott Fitzgerald.

That meant Celine got busy building a pop career, while Switzerland got busy hosting the show in Lausanne the following year. On home turf, the Swiss entry for 1989 was a treat for linguists everywhere - Furbaz’s Viver Senza Tei (Living Without You) had lyrics in Romansh.

One of Switzerland’s four official languages, it is spoken by just 0.5% of the population. It comes from the largest of the Swiss cantons, Graubünden, in the south-eastern corner of the landlocked country. Around 60,000 people speak Romansh today.

All Swiss entries prior to 1989 had been performed in the country’s three other official languages of French, German and Italian, as well a solitary song in English when the rulebook allowed it in the mid 1970s.

On the night of the contest, Furbaz could not emulate Celine’s success. They finished 13th.

Breton (France 1996)

France has a good track record of being innovative with its language choices at Eurovision. In 1992, the Martinique-born singer Kali represented the country with Monte La Rivie, with lyrics in a mixture of French and his native Creole.

It isn’t the only time France has used a different language to French at Eurovision. In the 1996 Contest, staged in Oslo, the song Diwanit Bugale (May the Children Be Born) was performed in Breton, the language of Brittany. It was composed and performed by Breton-born artist Dan Ar Braz, who was joined onstage by some of the members of L'Héritage des Celtes, a large group of Celtic musicians he had performed with in concert. This led to the interesting combination of the Welsh singer Elaine Morgan and two members of the Scottish group Capercaillie - Karen Matheson and Donald Shaw - joining forces with Dan to perform the French entry.

This was a time when the Celtic sound was bringing Ireland great success at Eurovision (the Irish entry won the 1996 Contest), but the juries didn’t click with Diwanit Bugale in the same way. Breton had arrived at Eurovision, and went home with 18 points and 19th place.

Udmurt (Russia 2012)

One group which caught much attention in the run-up to the 2012 Contest held in Baku, Azerbaijan, were Buranovskiye Babushki, a group of six women from Buranavo in Udmurtia, a republic in the Russian Federation.

Popularly known as ‘the Russian grannies’, the established folk group performed the song Party For Everybody, which began in traditional fashion before dropping into a disco beat. The song’s lyrics are a mixture of English and Udmurt.

Related to Finnish, Udmurt was on UNESCO’s 2011 list of endangered languages with around 460,000 speakers listed at that time. Group member Olga Tuktareva told the �鶹������ҳ��� during the group’s Eurovision rehearsals: “Udmurts are a tiny nation. And every small nation wants to be heard and seen. So it is a great opportunity to show this very small, very kind, very hard-working and patient people.”

On the night of the Eurovision final, Udmurt really did make an impact across the continent. The Babushki came in second to Sweden’s Loreen, and their performance - which included baking bread in a prop oven - is destined to feature in clip shows of Eurovision’s most memorable moments for a long time yet.

Imaginary (Belgium 2003 and 2008)

In a 65-year history involving more than 1,500 songs, an array of languages have featured at the contest - even ones that don’t exist.

In 2003, Belgium came close to securing one of the most intriguing Eurovision victories ever with Sanomi, performed by the group Urban Trad. Just two points behind winners Turkey and one ahead of the Russian group tATu, the folk anthem was performed - Jabberwocky style - in an imaginary language, a first for the Contest.

Yves Barbieux, the composer of Sanomi, told Bitesize: “As composer for a band that spoke many languages, I usually wrote fake lyrics to feel what language would be best - I even thought at a time to write in Esperanto.

“I was working on Sanomi when we got asked to represent Belgium. And we thought, why not represent Belgium with a language that was neither of our three official ones; French, Dutch and German. So I kept the imaginary language. That was a bit surreal, which was fine for us.”

Five years later, Belgium tried an imaginary language song again. The whimsical O Julissi was performed in a style reminiscent of light opera, but didn’t make the Saturday night final.

This article was published in May 2021.