Articles and Stories

December 22, 2014

It is that season again, and as every year, we follow traditions that have been passed on, generation after generation.

For many cultures, one essential component of this holiday season is the Christmas carols. Some of them are widely known and you can find the same song in different languages. Such examples are “Silent Night” and “O Come, All Ye Faithful”, but others are only known locally, in very specific regions, and for these, you won’t find different versions.

Growing up, we always listened to Noche de paz (the Spanish version of Silent Night) and occasionally, would sing it at some school events during the holiday season. It was later on, in high school, that I learned Silent Night in my ESL (English as a Second Language) class. At the time, I was also attending a Latin class, so it was no surprise that I also had to learn Adeste Fideles. Strangely, I still remember parts of it, despite the fact that I never spoke Latin and my knowledge was limited to grammar. Then again, music has always been a powerful tool to memorize and learn new languages.

Once I moved to the USA, I spent a few Christmas holidays here, away from my home country. It never occurred to me that I would miss some carols until I realized that the ones I was missing were, in fact, not known here. One such example of a typical Spanish Christmas carol (a “villancico”) is Campana sobre campana, a very popular song played around the streets of many Spanish cities. Perhaps one day someone will make it popular here by translating it into English, much in the same way some bilingual pop singers do with a few of their songs (like Shakira).

If you are curious to see the lyrics to some of the different language versions of Adeste Fideles, click here