Anthems in the Americas

In addition to the country-by-country word art you see here, below are six word clouds of the national anthems from all 35 independent nations in the Americas, grouped by language. The word lists used to create these images exclude common words (e.g., “the”) and references to specific nations, nationalities, or places specific to a specific nation’s history (e.g., “Jamaica,” “Bahamaland,” “quisqueyanos”) in order to be able to make appropriate comparisons between the anthems of different languages at a regional level. (For example, we would not expect to see the word “Jamaica” in any anthem other than Jamaica’s, so it make sense to exclude it from any comparative study.)

Additionally, to the extent possible, variations of the same base word have been “stemmed” so that, for example, the singular and plural forms of the same noun would be considered as the same word for counting purposes.

As such, this information differs to some degree from the country-by-country word art and word lists displayed in the other section of this website. In those cases, the proper names relating to nation-specific people, places, and things are retained, since no comparisons between nations are being made.

The overall results are displayed below, but you can click on each word cloud to explore the anthems in each of the six relevant languages (Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Dutch, and Sranan Tongo) in greater depth. You can also explore a full word list from all countries, regardless of language, here.

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Visualized another way, the table below shows the ten most common words from each language side-by-side. Again, you can also explore a full word list from all countries here.

#	Spanish	English	Portuguese	French	Dutch	Sranan Tongo
1	patria	land	pátria	patrie	land	opo
2	gloria	free	amada	a•ïeux	betrachten	strey
3	libertad	God	salve	bêchons	gedachten	bun
4	morir	love	terra	dieu	geeft	dede
5	saber	sons	amor	formons	God	eri
6	jurar	bless	céu	marchons	goed	fesiman
7	bandera	home	filhos	mourir	grond	feti
8	cielo	true	forte	pays	heerlijk	frede
9	sol	nation	própria	beau	houden	gado
10	voto	shore	adorada	fils	kwamen	kari