The National Anthem of South Africa

Did you ever heard about a song combining new English lyrics with extracts of a church hymn and a poem, employing all in all five different languages? Must be a master piece, right? Well, the piece we are talking about is the National Anthem of South Africa. It consists of words of the hymn 'Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika' (God Bless Africa) and the poem 'Die Stem van Suid-Afrika' (The Call of South Africa) and includes the five most widely spoken of South Africa's eleven official languages – Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, Afrikaans and English.

This interesting history has never been documented in detail until this was realized by Ludumo Magangane, member of the World Choir Council, when he conducted his choirs singing the national anthem: “I researched the origins of the compositions that form part of the anthem – “Nkosi Sikelel'iAfrika” by Enoch Mankayi Sontonga, the Sotho version – “Morena Boloka Sechaba Sa Heso”, and the poem “Die Stem van Suid Afrika” by C.J. Langenhoven which was later set to music by Rev de Villiers. I then added the work of the anthem committee which then gave us the anthem that we now sing. […] Then the idea of the book took root in my mind. I started writing the manuscript early in 2015, and the book was published in February 2016.”

If you want to learn more about the history of South Africa’s National Anthem, you can take a glimpse at Ludumo Magangane’s book here. (PDF, 414 KB). You can purchase the whole work through amazon.