In the era of global village, localization seems to be a must. Many global businesses have done this to push their sales. When you do some business in foreign country, you have to localize your products so that your local consumers understand them in their local taste. One of the way to localize is to promote your product in local language.
But you see, I’m not talking about business or promotion. Moreover, this is about The Beatles which is no need promotion in such a way anymore. They have been famous all over the globe. So, what I’m gonna talk about is non-commercial localization of the Beatles’ songs. And this is done by an Indonesian group called Sunda Bitel.
The name of the group itself is localized. Bitel [beetl] seems to be a common pronunciation of Beatles in Indonesia. This group consists of four Sundanese people, a second biggest tribe among various existing tribes. Then they name the group Sunda Bitel meaning Sundanese Beatles.
They actually play The Beatles songs in Sundanese language. Uniquely, the songs sounds similar with the original (English) version because they don’t translate the songs. They only transfer similarity of pronouncing. For instance, I’ll Follow The Sun is localized to be Ka Toko Hasan. It has no relation at all in meaning but sounds very similar. So far, they have localized more than forty songs. And it is interesting to find an alternative way in listening to great Beatles’ songs.
To hear how Sunda Bitel sings The Beatles songs in Sundanese language, please visit http://www.facebook.com/sundabitel.
Tata Danamihardja © 2011
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