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LOL, your hilarious Kudo. Número uno, saying one language is richer then another is incredibly ignorant. Based on the amount of words alone American English has quite a bit more then Arabic so you can't even use that as an argument, but again NO language is richer then another. Cante is NOT in Arabic, it's in Spanish. I can guarantee you I'm more familiar with the Spanish language than you are. I grew up hearing it on a daily basis and I can tell you as a language it does not allow you to express yourself easier, they're the same in that respect. Ease of expression is SOLELY based on the person speaking. It IS however a little easier on the ears I believe due to the whole masculine feminine thing and that words tend to end in vowels more then consonants, that makes it sounds more musical. Again, although there are certainly links between Spanish and Arabic CANTE is NOT in Arabic, it's in Spanish, and as someone who understands Spanish I don't understand Arabic so it's not as close as your making it out. I feel you though, as someone of Irish descent I love to emphasize the relationship between Iberia and Ireland, but realty, Spain is it's own animal. Nice try though...... Maybe if you had a better grasp of English you'd know that the word idiot carries quite a bit of weight, tonto.....
I still maintain rumba, fandango and tango can be done in English. As English tends not to end in vowels as much as the Latin languages there would have to be a different approach, but lest me ask...since they are 4/4 why couldn't they be done in English?
By the way I'm not talking about translations as those tend not to work except for 99 Luftbaloons, but I think original pieces could be made
In a lot of ways the province of Galicia is more like Ireland than it is Andalusia.
My grandmother was born in Cuba, but her parents came from Galicia and a lot of her dishes that she learned from her mother (fishcakes, meat pies, stews)reminded me of Irish food.
Cante in English can not be done and here's why. Language is much more than a utilitarian code that allows you to conduct everyday business. It is a continuously evolving web of ideas, beliefs, associations, traditions, memory and emotions. Language holds the culture of a people and its history. I can translate Churchill into French - "Nous nous battrons sur les plages…". "We will fight them on the beaches." But the resonance this has for me as a British citizen is something different from its literal meaning to a French speaker. If you were to attempt flamenco song in English why would you even want to call it "Cante"? You would have to call it "Chant" or something. And why would you call your English version, "fandango"? There is a somewhat perfunctory definition of fandango in the O.E.D. (a lively dance…) but the same word will have enormously wide-ranging and complex associations depending on who you ask in Andalucia. So, whilst you could easily go ahead - and this has been pointed out earlier in the thread - and put together something in English that would conform to the fandango meter, and whilst you could accompany this with your best attempt at traditional fandango accompaniment, no matter how it turned out it would not be a fandango. You can't unscramble the eggs, you can't separate the language, and all its rich associations, from the other elements of the music so you can't have cante in English.
To Quote Cervantes, "Sancho amigo, aqui algo huele, pero no es amba ni rosa, es otra cosa. Now try to translate that into english and see how you lose the beauty of the phrase.
I think the palo that would most naturally adapt to English is fandango...the basic melody is almost country and I bet it's rooted in Celtiberian traditions.
If you changed a lot of the style and just took the root song an adapted it to steel string acoustic with a country band without all the Spanish inflection, I bet that structure would hold up
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