Spanish Star Spangled Banner Has Existed For Decades

ABC News reports the United States Bureau of Education commissioned a Spanish-language version of "The Star Spangled Banner" in 1919:

The bureau called the song "La Bandera de las estrellas." You can find mention of "La Bandera de las estrellas" online at the Library of Congress' Performing Arts Digital Library interactive Web site.

An interactive display of the government-commissioned Spanish-language version is available here.

La bandera de las estrellas / John Stafford Smith [sheet music]
Verse
Amanece: ¿no veis, a la luz de aurora,
Lo que tanto aclamamos la noche al caer?
Sus estrellas, sus barras flotaban ayer
En el fiero combate en senal de victoria.
Fulgor de cohetes, de bombas es truendo,
Por la noche decian: "¡Se va defendiendo!"
¡Oh, decid! ¿Despliega aun su hermosura estrellada,
Sobre tierra de libres, la bandera sagrada?

Verse
En la costa lejana que apenas blanquea,
Donde yace nublada la hueste feroz,
Sobre aquel precipicio que elevase atroz,
¡Oh decidme! ¿que es eso quen la brisa ondea?
Se oculta y flamea, en el alba luciendo,
Reflejada en la mar, donde va resplandeciendo.
¡Aun alli desplego su hermosura estrellada,
Sobre tierra de libres, la bandera sagrada!

Verse
¡Oh asi sea siempre, en lealtad defendamos
Nuestra tierra natal contra el torpe invasor!
A Dios quien nos dio paz, la libertad, y honor,
Nos mantuvo nacion, con fervor bendigamos.
Nuestra causa es el bien, y por eso triumfamos,
Siempre fue nuestro lema: "¡En Dios confiamos!"
!Y desplegara asi su hermosura estrellada,
Sobre tierra de libres, la bandera sagrada!

There are four separate Spanish versions of The Star Spangled Banner on the U.S. State Department's Web site.

ABC points out that Library of Congress Web site includes German versions as well.

According to ABC, the logic behind foreign-language versions is that U.S. embassies could use the translations in ceremonies so guests could understand what was being sung.

The ABC story seems intended as a hit piece on senators who expressed displeasure with the new Spanish version of The Star Spangled Banner, trying to embarrass Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee:

"We wouldn't recite the pledge in French or German or Russian or Hindi or even Chinese," said Alexander. "And we shouldn't sing the national anthem in Spanish, or any other foreign language. So, in this land of immigrants, let's all sing it together, as one American nation, in our common language, English."

I don't have a problem with translations of The Star Spangled Banner, but I don't think its appropriate to rewrite it in a way that changes the meaning as was done in "Nuestro Himno." It isn't right to call the rewrite a Spanish version of the national anthem.

Comments

[Casandra, Spanish translator]

An amazing song. I love almost all spanish songs by the way!
http://www.all-translations.com/services/spanish-translation.html