Why is Silent Night, Holy Night so different in just about every language?

Tower of Babel

Because when a word in one language is one syllable and the equivalent word in another is three syllables, it throws off the rhythm of the song. Most song translations are a balancing act between the literal meaning and the requirements of the music and rhythm.

Because it IS A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE, FOR THOR'S SAKE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d__9tmLv3Y

Christmas carol - Silent Night in Russian

I'm not trying to be a wise guy, but a language is a living thing which has its own structure, grammar, syntax, conjugations, pronunciations, tenses, etc.

@Fabrizio: Man, stay away from microwaves and high tension wires, because son, you ain't right!

When you translate something directly, especially for songs, it often has an awkward feel to it - so they probably changed the words in order for the song to flow better.

do you understand that languages are different?! they way they create sentence structures and such..... they are all different. check out bronners.com and you can see just all all versions of the song there. just wait until you see those in Chinese or other language that even has different characters!