A national anthem is a generally patriotic musical composition that evokes and eulogizes the history, traditions and struggles of its people, recognized either by a country's government as the official national song, or by convention through use by the people.
Anthems rose to prominence in Europe during the nineteenth century; the oldest national anthem is "Het Wilhelmus", the Dutch national anthem, written between 1568 and 1572 during the Eighty Years War. The Japanese anthem, "Kimi ga Yo", has its lyrics taken from a Kamakura period poem, yet it was not set to music until 1880. Japan Policy Research Institute blank">JPRI Working Paper No. 79. Published July 2001. Retrieved July 7, 2007 "_God Save the Queen", the national anthem of the United Kingdom, was first performed in 1745 under the title "God Save the King". Spain's national anthem, the "Marcha Real" (The Royal March), dates from 1770. "La Marseillaise", the French anthem, was written in 1792 and adopted in 1795.
During the rise of the nation-state in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most remaining nations adopted an anthem upon attaining nationhood. Because of European colonial influence, many influenced in a similar way to adopt a national anthem, and thus several anthems outside Europe are in the European style. Only a handful of non-European countries have anthems rooted in including India, China, Japan, Costa Rica, Iran, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar.
An anthem can become a country's national anthem by a provision in the country's constitution, by a law enacted by its legislature or simply by tradition. The majority of national anthems are either marches or hymns in style. The countries of Latin America tend towards more operatic pieces, while a handful of countries use a simple fanfare.
National anthems are usually in the most common language of the country, whether de facto or official. India's anthem, Jana Gana Mana, is a highly Sanskritized version of Bengali. States with more than one national language may offer several versions of their anthem: For instance, Switzerland's anthem has different lyrics for each of the country's four official languages (French, German, Italian and Romansh). On the other hand, South Africa's national anthem is unique in that five of the eleven official languages are used in the same anthem (each language comprising a stanza). Another multilingual country, Spain, has no words in its anthem, La Marcha Real, although in 2007 a national competition to write words was launched The Economistid=9558331" target="_blank">Lost for words. Published July 26, 2007. Retrieved August 17, 2007 . Former military dictator _General Francisco Franco replaced the original words with words considered fascist, which were dropped after his death.
