National Anthem of South Africa - Structure

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).

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