Jacques Brel - "Le Moribond"

"Seasons in the Sun" is an English-language adaptation of the song "Le Moribond" by Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel^[1]with lyrics by American singer-poet Rod McKuen.^[2] It became a worldwide hit in 1974 for Canadian singer Terry Jacks and became a Christmas Number 1 in 1999 for Westlife. Jacks's version is one of the fewer than forty all-time singles to have sold 10 million copies worldwide.

The song is a dying protagonist's farewell to relatives and friends. The protagonist mentions how hard it will be to die now that the spring season has arrived (historically, spring is portrayed as the season of new life).

Original version

The original French-language song is a sardonic ballad, in which the speaker gives backhanded farewells to his adulterous wife and her lover and the priest he disagreed with while sarcastically expressing his wish that there should be singing and dancing when he is buried. Before Jacks popularized the song, earlier recordings had been released by The Kingston Trio with the first cover version of McKuen's translation in 1963 and the British band The Fortunes in 1968.

roots of English

Is English Really a Germanic Language?

IPA

 

IPA Chart With Sounds

 

The International Phonetic Alphabet (unofficially—though commonly—abbreviated IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association as a standardized representation of the sounds of oral language.^[1] The IPA is used by lexicographers, foreign language students and teachers,linguists, speech-language pathologists, singers, actors, constructed language creators, and translators.^[2][3]

The IPA is designed to represent only those qualities of speech that are part of oral language: phones, phonemes, intonation, and the separation of words and syllables.^[1] To represent additional qualities of speech, such as tooth gnashing, lisping, and sounds made with a cleft palate, an extended set of symbols called the Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet may be used.^[2]

IPA symbols are composed of one or more elements of two basic types, letters and diacritics. For example, the sound of the English letter ⟨t⟩ may be transcribed in IPA with a single letter, [t], or with a letter plus diacritics, [t̺ʰ], depending on how precise one wishes to be.^{[note 2]} Often, slashes are used to signal broad or phonemic transcription; thus, /t/ is less specific than, and could refer to, either [t̺ʰ]or [t], depending on the context and language.

Occasionally letters or diacritics are added, removed, or modified by the International Phonetic Association. As of the most recent change in 2005,^[4] there are 107 letters, 52 diacritics, and four prosodic marks in the IPA. These are shown in the current IPA chart, posted below in this article and at the website of the IPA.^[5]

DontTrustTheRabbit

Dialect Diversity in America

Published on Jan 24, 2013
--William Labov, Professor of Linguistics at University of Pennsylvania and author of Dialect Diversity in America, joins David to discuss the various and changing dialects and accents spoken in American English, and the political and economic factors in those dialects.

Shakespeare: Original pronunciation

Deutsche

Alfabeto Fonético Internacional

Los Sonidos del Alfabeto Fonético Internacional (IPA en Inglés)