This year, the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest featured a record breaking twenty languages. Eurovision Ireland will be looking at all the languages that have been performed at the Contest, since 1956, in our latest #AtoZ. Today, we continue the series with English, Estonian and Finland Swedish.

English

English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles, one of the Germanic peoples that migrated to Britain after its Roman occupiers left. English is the most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the global influences of the former British Empire and the United States. English is the third-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish; it is also the most widely learned second language in the world, with more second-language speakers than native speakers.

English appeared in full, within “All”, the British entry for the 1957 Eurovision Song Contest. Patricia Bredin performed “All”, finishing in 7th place with 6 points.

Estonian

Estonian is a Finnic language and the official language of Estonia. It is written in the Latin script and is the first language of the majority of the country’s population; it is also an official language of the European Union. Estonian is spoken natively by about 1.1 million people: 922,000 people in Estonia and 160,000 elsewhere.

Estonian appeared in full, within “Nagu merelaine”, the Estonian entry for the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. Silvi Vrait performed “Nagu merelaine”, finishing in 24th place with 2 points.

Finland Swedish

Finland Swedish or Fenno-Swedish is a variety of the Swedish language and a closely related group of Swedish dialects spoken in Finland by the Swedish-speaking population, commonly also referred to as Finland Swedes, as their first language.

Finland Swedish appeared in full, within “Fri?”, the Finnish entry for the 1990 Eurovision Song Contest. Beat performed “Fri?”, finishing in 21st place with 8 points.

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The Eurovision Community, which Eurovision Ireland are a part of, celebrates diversity through music. Please keep your comments respectful. We will not tolerate racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, body-shaming or any other derogatory or hostile language.

Author: Richard Taylor

Source: Eurovision Ireland, Wikipedia & YouTube/ESC:56-73/escLIVEmusic1