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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Multi-Lingual Weddings
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
Here's a poser for the Eccles folk. I have a wedding coming up next year which is to be a marvellous mixture of English, Swiss, and Portuguese. The bulk of the service will be conducted in English, but we intend having Bible readings in French and/or Portuguese, with translations being provided. I am also brushing up my French for some words of welcome, and will learn a few Portuguese phrases too.
The main puzzler is the hymns. We need two, which will probably be sung in English (or perhaps in French), but which are well enough known in both Switzerland and Portugal that the guests will have a chance at them. They could be modern or ancient, but they also need to be familiar in both Reformed and Catholic circles.
So how about it? Are there any suitable hymns out there that unite Scottish Presbyterians and Portuguese Catholics via Switzerland? Your suggestions will be much appreciated, as will any advice from those who have conducted or attended similar weddings.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
I can't speak on the Portuguese end, but All People That on Earth do Dwell is a Huguenot hymn originally--- the French words can be found here
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dj_ordinaire
Host
# 4643
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Posted
I've been to multi-lingual weddings before - English-Polish-Irish Gaelic and other exciting combinations... but hymns have never been a feature. There are precious few which translate across such traditions - even if the tune is preserved the words are usually entirely rewritten. Are congregational hymns essential?
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Flinging wide the gates...
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
I really doubt you'll find much of anything with multinational and cross-denominational appeal. I have quite a bit of experience with English/Spanish bilingual liturgies and there is some overlap in Catholic hymns between those two language, but you're looking for much broader reach. Even in that context, there's no expectation that everyone will sing every hymn. Maybe you're better off picking things with easy to pick up tunes, and printing the words and the tune in the program (even if the music notation only helps some of the guests, those will probably some of the ones more likely to sing strongly anyway). I also have to say that it's a rare wedding where you get much congregational participation in hymn singing in my experience.
In a Catholic context, I'd say your best bet would be Latin Eucharistic hymns (which would be odd given that I'm guessing this isn't a Mass), or Marian hymns (that might work better). But, I'm guessing your Reformed guests aren't too into Marian hymns. Maybe just get words that work to a very well known tune, like Frere Jacques (but I have no idea how popular that is in Portugal).
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Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
A little more thinking... if this was just a Catholic setting, I'd use "Hail Holy Queen Enthroned Above" (thank you, Sister Act). But, I'm guessing that might not go down too well...
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Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
The main puzzler is the hymns. We need two, which will probably be sung in English (or perhaps in French), but which are well enough known in both Switzerland and Portugal that the guests will have a chance at them.
Sing in Latin. That puts everyone on an equal footing. It might frighten your reformed horses a bit, though.
If you don't fancy that, "Joyful, joyful, we adore thee" surely has a tune familiar to all your guests.
"Love divine, all loves excelling" can be sung to Hydrofoil, which people might have heard.
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I understand the wish to be inclusive but don't think you're going to be able to find something appropriate that suits everybody and is known in three different countries.
It's a fair guess that most of the guests will have at least some knowledge of the English language, it's one of the more widely spoken ones. People will cope with two English hymns (provided they don't go on for at least 8 verses each) - make sure the words are provided in print so those that want to join in can.
I've been to services where the main language wasn't English and everybody seemed to cope. That included a wedding where French, Arabic and English were spoken but the service was in Greek. It isn't in principle much different from attending a Latin service when you don't speak Latin.
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
These are some good suggestions - thank you. I hadn't thought about printing out the music notation, but that makes a lot of sense. Even if there are no hymns that quite cross the boundaries, it is good to know that, so we can work things out from there. I like the suggestion of "Joyful Joyful", though - we have a hymn set to the same tune, and 'Ode to Joy' is pretty well known across Europe, I should think. And 'All people that on earth do dwell' is another interesting idea - thank you, Augustine the Aleut, for the French words.
You are right that it won't be a Mass or Communion (they could have Communion if they wanted, but most don't with us). Hymns are not obligatory, but they are almost always sung. Without them, the wedding can seem very short and perfunctory, I find.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
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dyfrig
Blue Scarfed Menace
# 15
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Posted
Would the Swiss know "A toi le gloire", Budry's hymn which forms the basis of "Thine Be The Glory"? I think it's picked up traction in some French Catholic circles, but don't know about Switzerland.
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"He was wrong in the long run, but then, who isn't?" - Tony Judt
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I wonder whether the whole concept of hymns would be unfamiliar to some of the people there. My experience of going to mass in France or Italy is that there is no enthusiasm for joining in any singing. (Germany is quite different.)
But I agree that communal singing on these occasions is a good idea. If you have someone to give a lead Taize chants would be a good idea - designed as they are to be ecumenical and international.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
No specific suggestions, but are there any vaguely suitable hymns that were originally written in Latin (or some other language) and have since been translated into English, Portuguese and French (or in one of those languages and translated into the others)? Might be a long shot. At our wedding we had Guide me O thou great Jehovah which IIRC the English sang in English and most of the Welsh sang in Welsh.
[ 16. December 2015, 08:54: Message edited by: Albertus ]
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
What time of year is this wedding? If anywhere near Christmas you could include a carol or two such as Adeste fideles or Silent Night. Failing that, how about choosing something from each tradition and getting the choir to rehearse it beforehand? Then everyone could sing their own hymn and - if you had a congregational run-through before the service - make a stab at the others.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Just discovered- if you google 'English Hymns Cross-reference chart' you will find an extensive table of English hymn first lines with the first lines of their French and Portuguese (among others) tranaslations. It seems to include quite a lot of well-known (in English at least) hymns, although as it is a Mormon source you may possibly (I don't know) need to look carefully at some of the translations.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
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Forthview
Shipmate
# 12376
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Posted
At the recent wedding of my son where there were 22 nationalities present and most of them with only limited or no exposure to anything Catholic or even Christian it was decided to have 'Amazing Grace' for communal singing. We thought that many people would know the music and even some of the words, even if they didn't know that it was a religious song. As venbede says it is good to have some communal singing. After the singing of the hymn we had a piper play the same tune for the exit of the bride and groom - a nice Scottish touch where the groom was Scottish and the bride Indonesian and the guests from Europe,America,Africa and Asia.
Other music during the ceremony, which included a Mass , was 'Ecce panis angelorum' which is usually sung to a Portuguese melody. The words are by St Thomas of Aquin and appear in his long sequence which begins ' Lauda Sion,Salvatorem,Lauda ducem et pastorem,In hymnis et canticis' Your church choir could sing these words instead of the particularly Eucharistic words.
We also had 'O Sanctissima' which is usually sung to a Sicilian piece of music which is also popular in German speaking lands as a Christmas carol 'O du froehliche'
I was really glad at the turnout of the choir,about a dozen came to sing.(The priest told me later that he had reminded them that attendance would fulfil the Sunday obligation)
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
At our wedding, we had one song in English, one in French, and one which we translated ourselves which was mash-up of both. I think we just accepted that not everyone was going to get all of it, made sure each song was being led by a native speaker and instructed people to Sing Loud on the songs in their own language. It worked pretty ok.
We translated everything in both languages on the service booklet so everyone could follow. We used an interpreter for the sermon but nothing else.
(Our other music was not religious - Mozart’s wedding march and Elgar’s Salut d’Amour - in honour of Ingerland.)
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
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dj_ordinaire
Host
# 4643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Just discovered- if you google 'English Hymns Cross-reference chart' you will find an extensive table of English hymn first lines with the first lines of their French and Portuguese (among others) tranaslations. It seems to include quite a lot of well-known (in English at least) hymns, although as it is a Mormon source you may possibly (I don't know) need to look carefully at some of the translations.
Ooh, that's an interesting resource! We should try to remember that...
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Flinging wide the gates...
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gog
Shipmate
# 15615
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Posted
Thinking that one hymn that may work is "Make me a channel of your peace". Pondering also have you asked the couple what they would like?
On putting the order of service together, if putting the multiple languages in the printed text, can suggest having paragraphs starting at the same line on the page in each language (if they are lined up in columns next to each other) so that things like page turns and so forth all happen together.
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
That's some useful advice - thank you. Though I am smiling at the suggestions re. the church choir. Not really an option here!
I've had one meeting with the couple, and sent them off to have a think about hymns, etc. We'll be meeting again after Christmas, and I wanted to have a couple of suggestions up my sleeve in case they've drawn a blank. Make me a channel of your peace and Amazing Grace are two excellent possibilities to add to the others above.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Cottontail
You are Scots. So what part of Switzerland (Catholic or Protestant)? If Protestant then why not find a metrical psalm set to an old Genevan tune? You can find the information on psalms at the Genevan Psalter resource centre for instance for psalm 121.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
The vows will be said in English, and most of the service will be in English too. I'm not translating any of the legal bits. Half the guests will be English, and the rest Swiss or Portuguese. The groom is English and the bride speaks excellent English, so it is more the bride's family and the couple's friends I am concerned to include.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
It's useful to find out if any of the traditions involved are accustomed to participating in hymn-singing or not. There can be some awkward mumblings-in-unison if they are not; this is perhaps where a soloist or choir can do an anthem in their language. Some discreet research???
I have been at a number of polyglot weddings-- an Ottawa phenomenon as we seem to mate with each other with gleeful abandon-- usually reading language A follows with another in language B. Often two clergy are involved so one does a bit in language A and the other does his bit in language B. Bride and groom tend to do vows in an agreed common language, but I have seen them do them in their own language, and once in each other's language.
The Orthies tend to use their own language solely (I recently attended a Greek/Haitian match where the Haitian family and guests stoically managed the entire service, wondering what on earth was going on) although locally the OCA seems to incorporate both traditions. I once attended an embarrassing wedding at an Anglican church in Scarborough (Ontario) where the very proper Ethiopian bride was puzzled by the rector's display of a kente cloth stole and unfortunate attempts at using hip-hop terminology in her address.
In my experience, most of the trouble comes with the reception, not the ceremony. A recent Cantonese/Romanian match addressed the problem with having two wedding receptions, driving the wedding's cost up to over $60,000.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
Here's a poser for the Eccles folk. I have a wedding coming up next year which is to be a marvellous mixture of English, Swiss, and Portuguese. The bulk of the service will be conducted in English, but we intend having Bible readings in French and/or Portuguese, with translations being provided. I am also brushing up my French for some words of welcome, and will learn a few Portuguese phrases too.
The main puzzler is the hymns. We need two, which will probably be sung in English (or perhaps in French), but which are well enough known in both Switzerland and Portugal that the guests will have a chance at them. They could be modern or ancient, but they also need to be familiar in both Reformed and Catholic circles.
So how about it? Are there any suitable hymns out there that unite Scottish Presbyterians and Portuguese Catholics via Switzerland? Your suggestions will be much appreciated, as will any advice from those who have conducted or attended similar weddings.
We regularly do multilingual services, so here's my two cents. First, ask the couple what they prefer. People who are not used to putting together multilingual services often make embarrassing mistakes (example: our host congregation, whose leaders think including the Lord's prayer in Vietnamese or Swahili counts as a fully-accessible bilingual service. Similarly the preachers who build their sermons around wordplay that only works in English)
Second, find out from the couple whether the guests are likely to sing at all or not. Quite a few people treat hymns as music-to-listen-to-and-not-sing, whether they know the words or not. (This might have something to do with the percentage of regular churchgoers in the group. We find that non-Christian Vietnamese have basically no idea how to sing in unison, having no experience of group worship, and won't pick up this ability in the course of a single wedding or funeral. So they just sit there.) If the couple says "Group X and Y are likely to sing, but not A and B," then you know where to focus your efforts. If you are still worried, give A and B a couple of sentences (spoken or written) that sum up the hymn's content.
If you have a choir of any sort, limit the music to what they can sing, and never mind the rest. Everyone will assume the choir has its limits, if anybody even bothers to think about musical choices.
Bear in mind that the same tune may have wildly different words in different languages. Our Vietnamese church has a wedding hymn to the tune of "You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille," and a communion hymn (yes, really) to the tune of "How dry I am." Have somebody vet the text. It may not be what you think. (Yeah, I know, you'd never make this mistake, but plenty of people do!) Also bear in mind that there may be a different number of verses in each translation. Again, if you must cut off some of the verses, get a native speaker to oversee what and where to cut. I've seen old lugubrious hymns cut in such a way that we get two really depressing verses about sin and death, and miss out on the four excellent Gospel verses about life and resurrection that follow! Similarly, if you are giving people music with their words (or they are likely to have the music memorized), it never hurts to be sure the tunes are exactly the same. "A mighty fortress" has a very very different rhythm in English and in Vietnamese arrangements, and it sounds like a series of car crashes when sung together.
Having just complicated the wazoo out of all this, let me back off. DON'T overly complicate matters. If you find you'll be handing people an eight page service bulletin with multiple columns to wade through, plus accessory songsheets, etc--consider just skipping that. Give everybody a single sheet that contains the main headings for what's going on now--"The Prayers," "The Vows," "The Opening Hymn," whatever. Translate THOSE headings so everyone can keep track of what's happening, but don't bother doing the text of the prayers and so forth, unless the congregation has a non-obvious part (Everybody can figure out "Amen" by themselves).
I've gone to non-translated Vietnamese services for years, and really, all I want to know is "What are they doing up there right now?" and "What comes next, and how long before we're done?" A single sheet with major headings gives me that data. I can cope with hearing hymns in a language not my own (they don't take all that long, after all) and I can say the Lord's prayer on my own, if I know that's what everybody else is doing. And even if I'm totally lost, I know the whole thing will be over in less than an hour.
TL;DR version: Don't fret. Don't get complicated. Have a great time.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
That's really helpful, Lamb Chopped - thank you. I think the plan is not for a fully bilingual service, but for one which acknowledges the cultures and languages present, and makes the guests feel welcome. Obviously I'll be discussing this more with the couple, but apart from the opening words and the readings, it will mostly be in English. I take your point about not overcomplicating things. But the idea about translated headings for an order of service is a very good one.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
I think LC’s right about single words being enough for people to follow.
Our service booklet had everything in two columns – the words to the songs with a header over them saying whether they were to be sung in English or in French, the Bible reading in full and single word headings for the rest. Apart from anything else, most people are pretty familiar with what goes in the average wedding, so one word like “vows” or “blessing” is really enough.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Once again Lamb Chopped, you speak words of applied wisdom.
One thought Cottontail to check. Do make sure that the words you use for the actual marriage bit are valid and in a valid language according to the law of the place where the wedding actually happens. And also, if that language isn't the language of either or both the couple, you may need to check whether any responsibility falls on you to make sure they know what they are doing.
Also, in England, if either of the couple is not an EU national, there are all sorts of extra hoops one has to jump through, and they keep open changing. So if the wedding is in Scotland, the rules will almost certainly be complicated but quite different from here.
Incidentally, people go from the UK to other countries to get married in a romantic location. Romantic locations abroad market themselves to offer this. As far as England is concerned, it's virtually impossible to do the same the other way round.
However romantic may be the wedding you've always dreamt of in Canterbury Cathedral or an ancient castle, if you live in Arkansas, don't even think about wasting your money on the thought. Even the recent relaxation on the rules as to time and venue are only viable if at least one of you already lives here.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
Yes, that's why I am not messing with the vows. The system is quite different in Scotland, and all the other legalities get sorted out between the couple and the registrar. If they present me with a marriage schedule, then the wedding can go ahead. As one is a British Citizen and one is an EU national, there should be no problem. And as I've said, the EU national speaks excellent English.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
Augustine beat me to the Old Hundredth. Genevans use the 124th Psalm as a patriotic Genevan hymn, much as it was used in Scotland.
Remember too, though, that the tune we know as "Old Hundredth" is attached to Psalm 134 in the Genevan psalter. It was the Scots Psalter that translated it to Psalm 100 and made it famous with those words.
Musically, there is little commonality with Portuguese Catholics, but you can't go wrong with some classic Genevan psalm tunes either musically or theologically. Nobody will go away offended from that.
The hymnary.org selection is in B-flat; the United Church of Canada's hymn book has a bilingual French/English entry (parallel lines) in G. PM me if you or your organist want details; I have the Organists Version of the hymn music available too.
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
... Remember too, though, that the tune we know as "Old Hundredth" is attached to Psalm 134 in the Genevan psalter. It was the Scots Psalter that translated it to Psalm 100 and made it famous with those words. ...
Are you sure of that? I think it's earlier. I think it goes back at least to the English Psalter of 1562.
It's in the Scottish Psalter (1650) but unlike most in that revision, it's more or less unchanged from the original.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Graven Image
Shipmate
# 8755
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Posted
In our Spanish English services we would sing even verses in English and odd verses in Spanish. Call and response with the psalm and again first English and then Spanish. We said the Lord's prayer together each in their own language. It worked out very well.
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