Happy Birthday Song In Arabic
Nichele Seibel
For many children, birthdays matter. I needed to honor these days in ways that were meaningful and relevant for each of my students. So a few days after that moment at breakfast with William, I launched a birthday songs curriculum, inviting families to send in lyrics for birthday songs they knew so we could learn about them. I hoped this project would help children feel excited about celebrating birthdays in school. I also hoped it would be one of many ways to break Eurocentric norms in my classroom and help my students feel welcome and empowered.
Many children wanted to ask their parents about other birthday songs they knew, so I suggested that we request this information by writing one big letter to their families. Students suggested words for this note and helped write some words; I wrote the rest.
While the class was at recess, I took a photo of the letter and put copies of the photo in folders that children take between home and school each day. In addition, I gave each family two pieces of paper on which a family member could write lyrics for a birthday song (or songs) they knew; their child could illustrate. I also sent an email to families clarifying the goals of the study.
In late May, we made our class birthday song into a songbook. I put each phrase of the song on paper and each child illustrated a page during writing time. I put this book on our bookshelf and each child took a copy home.
The whole point of studying birthday songs was to help children feel welcome to use home languages at school and learn about languages that classmates speak. A few weeks after we made the songbook, the curriculum appeared to be working.
A picture perfect birthday, balloons, kids running around, pop corn, cakes, mummies and nannies, music, and last but not least the birthday cake. As we gather around to sing happy birthday to the birthday boy/girl, we gather all our strength and take a deep breath, as we know there will be a four-minute medley of happy birthday in all languages. Well, I might be exaggerating a little bit, but it is true. If we knew more then 3 languages in Lebanon we would probably be singing in as many as we could.
Sabah was a highly successful Lebanese singer and movie star, born in 1927 to a Christian family. Tragically, her father was abusive, and her brother murdered her mother because he believed she was having an affair. Sabah's first marriage was mostly to escape this home life.
Sabah had ten different husbands. One of them, Egyptian actor Rushdie Abaza, married her in 1977 while still married to Samia Gamal! It seems he failed to inform Sabah that he had not yet completed his divorce from Samia, and the marriage only lasted three days. There is a famous quote in which Sabah said, "Whoever hasn't been married to Rushdy Abaza, hasn't been married." (Her words are always repeated with a broad wink.)
Over the course of her career, Sabah recorded over 3,000 songs and appeared in 98 movies. She received a special honor at the 1998 Alexandria film festival and retired from cinema in 1981. Sabah is considered one of the three Lebanese icons, along Wadih El Safi and Fairouz, and she was nicknamed "The Empress of Lebanese Song".
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"Happy Birthday to You", or simply "Happy Birthday", is a song traditionally sung to celebrate a person's birthday. According to the 1998 Guinness World Records, it is the most recognized song in the English language, followed by "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow". The song's base lyrics have been translated into at least 18 languages.[1] The melody of "Happy Birthday to You" comes from the song "Good Morning to All",[2] which has traditionally been attributed to American sisters Patty and Mildred J. Hill in 1893,[3][4] although the claim that the sisters composed the tune is disputed.[5]
The song is in the public domain in the United States and the European Union. Warner Chappell Music had previously claimed copyright on the song in the US and collected licensing fees for its use; in 2015, the copyright claim was declared invalid and Warner Chappell agreed to pay back $14 million in licensing fees.
Patty Hill was a kindergarten principal in Louisville, Kentucky, developing teaching methods at the Little Loomhouse;[6] her sister Mildred was a pianist and composer.[7] The sisters used "Good Morning to All" as a song that young children would find easy to sing.[8] The combination of melody and lyrics in "Happy Birthday to You" first appeared in print in 1912.[9] None of the early appearances of the "Happy Birthday to You" lyrics included credits or copyright notices. The Summy Company registered a copyright in 1935, crediting authors Preston Ware Orem and Mrs. R. R. Forman. In 1988, Warner/Chappell Music purchased the company owning the copyright for US$25 million, with the value of "Happy Birthday" estimated at US$5 million.[10][11] Warner claimed that the United States copyright would not expire until 2030 and that unauthorized public performances of the song were illegal unless royalties were paid. In February 2010, the royalty for a single use was US$700.[12] By one estimate, the song is the highest-earning single song in history.[13] In the European Union, the copyright for the song expired on January 1, 2017.[14]
The American copyright status of "Happy Birthday to You" began to draw more attention with the passage of the Copyright Term Extension Act in 1998. The Supreme Court upheld the Act in Eldred v. Ashcroft in 2003, and Associate Justice Stephen Breyer specifically mentioned "Happy Birthday to You" in his dissenting opinion.[15] American law professor Robert Brauneis extensively researched the song and concluded in 2010 "it is almost certainly no longer under copyright."[16] Good Morning to You Productions sued Warner/Chappell for falsely claiming copyright to the song in 2013.[5][10] In September 2015, a federal judge declared that the Warner/Chappell copyright claim was invalid, ruling that the copyright registration applied only to a specific piano arrangement of the song and not to its lyrics and melody. In 2016, Warner/Chappell settled for $14 million, and the court declared that "Happy Birthday to You" was in the public domain.[17][18]
Among English-speakers, it is traditional at a birthday party for the guests celebrating the birthday to sing the song "Happy Birthday to You" to the birthday person, often when presenting a birthday cake. After the song is sung, party guests sometimes add wishes like "and many more!" expressing the hope that the birthday person will enjoy a long life. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, immediately after "Happy Birthday" has been sung, it is traditional for one of the guests to lead with "Hip hip ..." and then for all of the other guests to join in and say "... hooray!"[20] This cheer normally is given three times in a row.
In regions of America and Canada, especially at young children's birthdays, immediately after "Happy Birthday" has been sung, it is not uncommon for the singers to segue into "How old are you now? How old are you now? How old are you now, how old are you now?"[21] and then count up: "Are you one? Are you two? Are you ..." until they reach the right age or often, instead of counting, "and many more!" for those who are older.[22][23]
The music and lyrics are in the public domain in the European Union and the United States. The copyright expired in the European Union on January 1, 2017.[24] A U.S. federal court ruled in 2016 that Warner and Chappell's copyright claim was invalid and there was no other claim to copyright.[18]
"Happy Birthday to You" dates from the late 19th century, when sisters Patty and Mildred J. Hill introduced the song "Good Morning to All" to Patty's kindergarten class in Kentucky.[10] They published the tune in their 1893 songbook Song Stories for the Kindergarten with Chicago publisher Clayton F. Summy. Kembrew McLeod stated that the Hill sisters likely copied the tune and lyrical idea from other popular and similar nineteenth-century songs, including Horace Waters' "Happy Greetings to All" from 1858, "Good Night to You All", also from 1858, "A Happy New Year to All" from 1875, and "A Happy Greeting to All", published 1885. However, U.S. law professor Robert Brauneis disputes this, noting that these earlier songs had quite different melodies.[25]
The complete text of "Happy Birthday to You" first appeared in print as the final four lines of Edith Goodyear Alger's poem "Roy's Birthday", published in A Primer of Work and Play, copyrighted by D. C. Heath in 1901, with no reference to the words being sung.[26] The first book including "Happy Birthday" lyrics set to the tune of "Good Morning to All" that bears a date of publication is The Elementary Worker and His Work, from 1911, but earlier references exist to a song called "Happy Birthday to You", including an article from 1901 in the Inland Educator and Indiana School Journal.[27] In 1924, Robert Coleman included "Good Morning to All" in a songbook with the birthday lyrics as a second verse. Coleman also published "Happy Birthday" in The American Hymnal in 1933. Children's Praise and Worship published the song in 1928, edited by Byers, Byrum, and Koglin.[citation needed]
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