Liet International/Eurovision für Minderheitensprachen

Sorry to be so late on this – the competition was held on November 19 and was won by a Dutch Frisian:

Young Frisian singer-songwriter Janna Eijer from the village of Jobbegea has won the eight edition of songcontest Liet International. Janna Eijer impressed the jury in the packed Teatro Nuovo Giovanni da Udine with the song ‘Ien klap’. The Coffeeshock Company, a Croatian band from Burgenland in Austria won the public award. It is the very first time that a Frisian contestant wins Liet International.

Liet International is the big international song contest for contemporary songs in European minority languages. Alongside Frisian, the other contestants in Udine came from Ireland, Austria (Burgenland Croats), Val Badia (Ladinians), Scotland, Karelia in Russia, Udmurt in Russia, Friulian in Italy, Switzerland, Norwegian Sápmi, and the Basque Country and Asturias in Spain. Janna Eijer was sent to Udine as the winner of the Frisian song contest Liet earlier this year. She was the only soloist of the twelve contestants. At Liet International songs were in Irish, Croatian, Gaelic, Sápmi, Ladinian, Vepsian (Karelia), Ladinian (South Tyrol), Udmurtian (a Finno-Ugric language in Russia), Friulian, Rumantsch (Switzerland), Basque and Asturian.

Is the Romansh singer really called Rezia Ladina, or is that a pseudonym?

In this competition, songs must be in one of the minority languages, not (unlike in the Eurovision Song Contest) in English. Still, the site has English translations of the lyrics. you can hear at least some of the songs on YouTube.

You! Basque-speaker!
become a megaphone
explodes the basque language with shouts
thousand borders, thousand tones!

Why have I never heard of this competition? It would surely be just as much fun on TV as the Eurovision one.

Found in this article on Romansh (containing the curious and apparently US term a singing tilt).

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