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 Japanese, Karelian and Latin.

Japanese

Japanese is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people. It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide.

Japanese appeared within phrases of “Toy”, the Israeli entry for the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest. Netta performed “Toy”, finishing in 1st place with 529 points.

Karelian

Eastern Finnish dialects are chiefly vested in the Savonians (the Savonian dialects) and the Karelians (the southeast Finnish dialects). One of the Finnish language spoken group, the North Karelian, represents the East Finnish dialects, however this distinction is not established in any case. Other dialects, such as the North Finnish dialects, are considered as East or West Finnish dialects. Kalevala, one of the earliest and most significant works of Finnish literature, was written in East Finnish and East Finnish features were used extensively in the Finnish language standardisation.

Karelian appeared within phrases of “Työlki ellää”, the Finnish entry for the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest. Kuunkuiskaajat performed “Työlki ellää”, finishing in 11th place in the Semi Final, with 49 points.

Latin

Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area around Rome, Italy. Through the expansion of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language in the Italian Peninsula and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. It has greatly influenced many languages, including English, having contributed many words to the English lexicon, particularly after the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman Conquest. Latin roots appear frequently in the technical vocabulary used by fields such as theology, the sciences, medicine, and law.

Latin first appeared within the title of “Lapponia”, the Finnish entry for the 1977 Eurovision Song Contest, before appearing within lines of “In corpore sano”, the Serbian entry for the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest. Konstrakta performed “In corpore sano”, finishing in 5th place with 312 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/EBU