The following list is of languages used in theEurovision Song Contest since its inception in 1956, including songs (as) performed in finals and, since 2004, semi-finals.
The rules concerning the language of the entries have been changed several times. In the past, the contest's organisers have sometimes compelled countries to only sing in their own national languages, but since 1999 no such restriction has existed.
From1956 until1965, there was no rule restricting the language(s) in which the songs could be sung. For example,Ingvar Wixell representingSweden in 1965, sang his song "Absent Friend" in English. After this, a rule was imposed that a song must be performed in one of the official languages of the country participating. This new language policy remained in place until1973.
From 1973 to1976 inclusive, participants were allowed to enter songs in any language. Several winners took advantage of this, with songs in English by countries where other languages are spoken, this includedABBA's "Waterloo" representingSweden in 1974, andTeach-In's "Ding-a-dong" representing theNetherlands in 1975.[1]
In1977, theEuropean Broadcasting Union (EBU) reimposed the national language restriction. However,Germany andBelgium were given a special dispensation to use English, as their national song selection procedures were already too advanced to change. During the language rule, the only countries which were allowed to sing in English were Ireland, Malta, and the United Kingdom as English is an official language in those countries. The restriction was imposed from 1977 to1998.
From1999 onwards, a free choice of language was again allowed. Since then, several participating broadcasters have chosen songs that mixed languages, often English and the national language of their country. Prior to that, songs such as "Don't Ever Cry" (Croatia 1993), "One Step" (Austria 1997), and "Goodbye" (Bosnia and Herzegovina 1997) had a title and one line of the song in a non-native language.Edyta Górniak, representingPoland in 1994, caused a scandal when she broke the rules by singing her song in English during the dress rehearsal[2][3] (which is shown to the juries who selected the winner). Only six participating broadcasters demanded that Poland should be disqualified, and with the rules requiring at least 13 of them to complain, the proposed removal did not occur.[4]
Since2000, some songs have usedconstructed languages (conlangs): two Belgian entries were entirely written in constructed languages: "Sanomi" in2003 and "O Julissi" in2008. "Amambanda", representing theNetherlands in 2006, was sung partly in English and partly in a conlang.
The entry which used the most languages was "It's Just a Game", which representedNorway in 1973. It was performed in English andFrench, with some lyrics inSpanish,Italian,Dutch,German,Gaelic,Serbo-Croatian,Hebrew,Finnish,Swedish, andNorwegian. "Love Unlimited", representingBulgaria in 2012, had mainly lyrics inBulgarian, but with phrases inTurkish,Greek, Spanish, Serbo-Croatian, French,Balkan Romani, Italian,Azerbaijani,Arabic and English. "Pozdrav svijetu", representingYugoslavia in 1969, was mainly sung inCroatian, but also had phrases in Spanish, German, French, English, Dutch, Italian,Russian, and Finnish.
For the first time since the reintroduction of a free choice of language in 1999, more than half of the entries of the2025 contest were in their representative country's national language. Out of 37 entries, 26 at least partially contained one of their national languages (five were in English along with their national languages). The remaining 11 entries were in languages other than their national languages, and this was the first contest since 1998 where less than half of the songs were fully in English. Sweden was represented by a song in Swedish for the first timesince 1998, Germany was represented by a song mainly in German for the first timesince 2007, and Latvia was represented by a song entirely in Latvian for the second time in its history, with the other beingin 2004.[5][6][7]
As of 2025,[update] the only country that has never entered a song completely in one or more of its national languages isAzerbaijan, which has never entered a song fully in theAzerbaijani language (although the aforementioned "Love Unlimited" contained a line in the language; "Mata Hari", representingAzerbaijan in 2021, contained a repeated phrase in the language; and the chorus of "Özünlə apar", representingAzerbaijan in 2024, is in Azerbaijani).Monaco has never usedMonégasque, its traditional national language, butFrench is Monaco's official and most commonly spoken language, and all of Monaco's entries have been entirely or primarily in French.
On the other hand, as of 2025,[update] there are ten countries whose representatives have performed all their songs at least partially in an official, regional or national language:Andorra,Australia,France,Ireland,Italy,Luxembourg,Malta,Monaco,Morocco and theUnited Kingdom. In addition, former countriesSerbia and Montenegro andYugoslavia (Serbo-Croatian was an official language in both) and current countries Australia, Ireland, Malta and the United Kingdom (English is an official language in all four), Monaco (French) and Morocco (Arabic) have only been represented by songs fully in an official language.
The only editions not to feature any English-language entries were 1956 and1958, while2022 was the first time in the history of the event that no entry was performed in French – with the two being the official languages of the contest. In 1956 and 1958, no Anglophone country participated, whereas in 2022, the threeFrancophone participants entered songs in English (Belgium and Switzerland) andBreton (France) respectively. While non-Francophone countries have in the past sent entries wholly or partially in French, none did so in 2022.
French legislatorFrançois-Michel Gonnot criticised broadcasterFrance Télévisions and launched an official complaint in theFrench Parliament, as the song which representedFrance in 2008, "Divine" bySébastien Tellier, was sung in English.[8] A similar incident occurred again in 2014, whenRuth Lorenzo was criticised by theRoyal Spanish Academy after winning theSpanish national selection with her song "Dancing in the Rain", which contained some lyrics in English.
The followingnatural languages have appeared in at least one competing entry in the Eurovision Song Contest:
Most Europeans speak one or severalIndo-European languages as afirst language,second language or both. Of the main branches of Indo-European,Germanic andRomance have been represented at every contest.Balto-Slavic languages, another branch of Indo-European with hundreds of millions of speakers, were first introduced to the contest byYugoslavia and have become more common after the end of the Cold War as more and more countries with a Slavic national language participated. TheBaltic subgroup of Baltoslavic has only sporadically appeared as these languages have few speakers outside Lithuania and Latvia. Smaller branches such asHellenic languages,Albanoid,Celtic languages (includingBreton andIrish),Armenian languages and others have likewise depended on whether the national broadcaster representing that language participates and selects an entry in that language. For example despite Irish beingde jurea co-official national language in Ireland, there has been only one Irish-language entry, but two in Breton, a language that has beenactively fought against by the French state in the 20th century. While theIndo-Iranian branch of Indo-European includes some of themost spoken languages in the world, few people in EBU member states speak one of those languages and thus their presence at Eurovision thus far has been minimal.
Non-Indo-European languages have been appearing since the 1960s. The first group to appear were theUralic languages which includeNorthern Sámi,Finnish,Estonian andHungarian. In the 1970sSemitic languages (of the widerAfroasiatic family) which have been represented by theMaltese language,Hebrew and various varieties ofArabic first appeared in the contest. TheTurkic languages have mostly been represented byTurkey (Azeri which is also a Turkic language has only been used for a few lines in a few songs thus far). As Turkey hasn't participated since 2012, the representation of Turkic languages has decreased.
Besides those languages that have notable communities of native speakers in EBU member states, there have beenconlangs (languages "made up" by identifiable individuals or groups of individuals in recent times – some of the entries used a conlang devised specifically for that song bordering onglossolalia), languages from outside the EBU area as well as "dead"classical languages such asAncient Greek,Sanskrit orClassical Latin used for songs, their titles or parts of their lyrics.
Spoken languages are fully counted below when they are used in at least an entire verse or chorus of a song. First brief uses of a language and first uses ofdialects are also noted.
Between 1966 and 1972, and again between 1977 and 1998, countries were only permitted to perform in a official, national, or regional language of their country. Since language restrictions were last lifted in 1999, only four songs in non-English languages have won: "Molitva" (Serbia 2007) wan performed in Serbian, "Amar pelos dois" (Portugal 2017) in Portuguese, "Zitti e buoni" (Italy 2021) in Italian, and "Stefania" (Ukraine 2022) in Ukrainian. Also, the winning entries forUkraine in 2004 and2016 combined lyrics in English with Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar, respectively.
In 2017, "Amar pelos dois" became the firstPortuguese-language song to win the contest, the first winner since 2007 to both be in a language that had never produced a winning song before and be entirely in a language other than English. Among all Eurovision winning entries, only Ukraine's were performed in more than one language.
2021 was the first year since 1995, and the first since language restrictions were last lifted in 1999, that the top three songs were all sung in a non-English language: Italian (first) and French (second and third).
Three times in the history of the contest, songs have been sung, wholly or partially, in constructed languages orgibberish.[64][65]
| Appearance | Country | Performer | Song |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 |  Belgium | Urban Trad | "Sanomi" |
| 2006 |  Netherlands | Treble | "Amambanda" |
| 2008 | Belgium | Ishtar | "O Julissi" |
Some performances have included phrases insign languages on stage.
The singer Aistė represented the country with the song Strazdas which was sung in Samogitian, a dialect of the Lithuanian language.
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