Structure
The fact that it shifts (modulates) and ends in a different key, a feature it shares with the Italian national anthem, makes it compositionally unusual. The lyrics employ the five most widely spoken of South Africa's eleven official languages - Xhosa (first stanza, first two lines), Zulu (first stanza, last two lines), Sesotho (second stanza), Afrikaans (third stanza) and English (final stanza).
Read more about this topic: National Anthem Of South Africa
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“Each structure and institution here was so primitive that you could at once refer it to its source; but our buildings commonly suggest neither their origin nor their purpose.”
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“Science is intimately integrated with the whole social structure and cultural tradition. They mutually support one otheronly in certain types of society can science flourish, and conversely without a continuous and healthy development and application of science such a society cannot function properly.”
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“Agnosticism is a perfectly respectable and tenable philosophical position; it is not dogmatic and makes no pronouncements about the ultimate truths of the universe. It remains open to evidence and persuasion; lacking faith, it nevertheless does not deride faith. Atheism, on the other hand, is as unyielding and dogmatic about religious belief as true believers are about heathens. It tries to use reason to demolish a structure that is not built upon reason.”
—Sydney J. Harris (19171986)