Was the malaysian anthem took out of a popular song of the seychelle islands?
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Executive summary
Yes — the melody of Malaysia’s national anthem, Negaraku, is widely reported to have originated from a popular 19th‑century French song that was known in the Seychelles and later became the Perak state tune “Terang Bulan,” which in turn was selected as the basis for the national anthem; this genealogy appears across histories and cultural accounts though exact transmission details remain debated [1] [2].
1. The commonly told chain: French melody → Seychelles popularity → Perak → Negaraku
Multiple independent accounts trace the tune back to a French chanson often identified as “La Rosalie” by Pierre‑Jean de Béranger, which was reportedly popular on Mahé in the Seychelles in the late 19th century and heard there by Sultan Abdullah of Perak during his exile; that melody subsequently became associated with a Malay popular song “Terang Bulan,” was used as the Perak state anthem and was ultimately chosen for the national anthem in 1957 [1] [3] [2].
2. Documentary convergence and differences in emphasis
Encyclopedic and popular sources — from Wikipedia’s entry on Negaraku to national‑anthem specialists and regional journalism — converge on the Seychelles link and the Perak interim step, repeatedly noting the tale that an aide hummed a tune from Seychelles when asked for Perak’s anthem in London [4] [2] [5]. However, narratives differ in nuance: some emphasize a direct memory of the Sultan [3], others point to performances by travelling bangsawan troupes that spread the tune across the Malay world [1], and a few accounts foreground later popular adaptations called “Terang Bulan” rather than a single, traceable composition [6] [7].
3. What the sources agree on — and where they hedge
There is strong, repeated agreement among the sources that the melody used for Negaraku had a prior life as a popular song widely sung in the region and that the Perak state anthem adopted that melody before 1957 [5] [2]. The sources are less definitive, however, about a single authorial moment linking “La Rosalie” unequivocally to every local variant; scholars cited in journalism warn that details are “murky” and multiple routes of transmission (exile, travelling theatre troupes, recorded performances) likely coexisted [6] [1].
4. Alternative readings and national sensitivities
Some retellings stress a neat origin story — Sultan Abdullah hears the tune in exile and brings it home — which serves a tidy national narrative [8] [9], while cultural historians and musicologists note that melodies routinely circulate and mutate across languages and islands, producing parallel lives such as Chinese‑language romantic versions and Malay bangsawan variants; these scholars urge caution against a simplistic “took from Seychelles” headline [10] [1].
5. Hidden agendas, gaps and what remains unverified
Popular outlets and nationalist retellings sometimes present the Seychelles origin as settled fact, which can flatten the provenance and obscure intermediary stages like Indonesian and Singaporean performances that helped popularize the tune in Malaya [2] [6]; the reporting available here does not include primary archival evidence (original sheet music, dated performance records from Seychelles bands, or contemporaneous correspondence) that would incontrovertibly prove a single chain of custody, so the reconstruction relies on secondary histories, journalism and folklore compiled in the cited sources [3] [5].
6. Bottom line
Based on the consistent reporting across the cited sources, it is accurate to say the Malaysian anthem’s melody has roots in a popular tune that circulated in the Seychelles (commonly linked to “La Rosalie”) and later became the Perak state tune “Terang Bulan” before being adopted as Negaraku in 1957, but the precise one‑to‑one authorship and the exact transmission path remain contestable and are described as murky by several commentators and historians [1] [4] [6].