Talk:Circle of Life

Untitled

the mood created is proud and uplifting the opening song is great.

Please sign your comments using ~~~~. This page is for discussion of the article and not the subject in general. Blue Phoenix 22:51, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Should There be a section on the more scientific aspect? The cycle of birth, life, death, then birth again? Or at least a reference? If so, can someone add it in? ^.^ 65.7.181.151 (talk) 04:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

College GameDay on ESPN

The Zulu introduction lyrics (Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba…) was used for a commercial for the first College GameDay on ESPN of the 2013-2014 NCAA Division I Football season. Because the Zulu intro accompanies the sunrise at the beginning of the animated film, the advert read, "GET UP FOR 9AM GET UP. IT'S GAMEDAY.", indicating that College GameDay moved from its previous 10:00 AM EST starting time to 9:00 AM.

DaDoc540 (talk) 14:06, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Clarification on Academy Award

I think this sentence could be clearer

Circle of Life was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song in 1994 along with two other songs from The Lion King: "Hakuna Matata" and "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" [4][5] which won the award.[4]

Perhaps saying "the latter of which won the award" would make it more obvious which one won. WinderA (talk) 20:53, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

WinderA Agreed. Go crazy! Cyphoidbomb (talk) 21:52, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

circle of life is the intellecual property of Dino Lawrence Capito and Cheril Dianne Russell

I had a meeting at Disney, set up by Jerry Goldstine, in the executive office. I left a tape of original recordings. A song called The River was on this tape. The chorus of this song and ideas in the lyrics makes it obvious that Cheril and I Should be credited for this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:7380:4F60:28B1:2282:7DEA:5C3 (talk) 04:30, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

This is interesting but completely beyond the scope of the article. I've read that many record companies will not listen to demo tapes in case this sort of thing happens. If you could point to YouTube video or similar with a performance of "The River" it would also be interesting, but bear in mind that plagiarism in music is usually defined as pretty much note for note similarity, not vague similarity. "Stairway to Heaven" springs to mind here.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 07:11, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Version Clarification

This article confusingly skips between versions of the song and would benefit from more clarity, and possibly even breaking up the article into one about the film version and one about Elton John's pop version. Different sections talk about different versions (e.g. the film version in "Opening of song" and the first few sentences of the intro; John's single in "Critical reception", "Charts", and other parts of the intro), and the article often just says "the song". This isn't a minor difference as those two versions have different singers, totally different instrumentation, and even different languages (only the film version has the Zulu intro). The mentions of the song's critical reception is particularly unfortunate since it all seems to be complaints about John's singing, and surely the reception to the film version would be different. 2600:4041:5679:4200:89A:B071:BEBB:A67B (talk) 01:52, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Opening lyrics not reliably sourced

The lyrics in Circle of Life#Opening of song lack a reliable source, both for the original Zulu lyrics and the English translation. It was changed to the current version by Worstbull in and , based on what seems to be original research and user-generated sources. The previous version cited this Classic FM article which seems at least somewhat reliable, but it’s unclear where they got the lyrics from so it’s possible that they just copied a popular version from somewhere on the internet. I’ve marked the section as disputed. EvenTwist41 (talk) 00:57, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Everywhere you search you can find „nants igonyama baghiti baba“ which supposedly has a different meaning 2A02:908:195:79C0:78C6:27B0:2670:7367 (talk) 21:28, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

The lyrics before my edit appeared to be a fan-made transcription without any sound background that definitely do not reflect what we hear in the opening chants of the song, and there is no reliable original source for the previous "Nants'ingonyama" version. I've searched the web for discussions and found some experts discussing it here: https://www.quora.com/What-do-the-lyrics-in-the-opening-sequence-of-The-Lion-King-mean Which is where this current (disputed) version is coming from. I have confirmation from experts from the isiZulu department of the University of Kwazulu-natal that this is the correct transcription of what we hear in the song, but they concluded that while the transcription is correct, it does not seem to be valid isiZulu. Therefore the translation was generated with online translators, that 'attempt' to translate it into meaningful sentences. My conclusion (speculation) is that Lebo M didn't speak sufficient isiZulu (he does not originate from a Zulu-speaking community in Johannesburg, and moved to the U.S. when he was around 18) when he composed the lyrics, and therefore combined a mix of isiZulu, isiXhosa and some chants. Worstbull (talk) 12:21, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

I added the Quora URL as reference, I know it's not a great source, but better than nothing. Worstbull (talk) 22:14, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

The "Nants' Ingonyama" spelling has appeared in officially licensed publications (e.g., Hal Leonard music books) for years. I think this is turning into a "verifiability, not truth" situation. (I don't know if any official Disney sources have published a translation of the lyrics, although I wouldn't be surprised if something like that does exist. We may need to search older print sources, like Disney magazines.) Zagalejo (talk) 18:18, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

I agree that it's a "verifiability, not truth" situation, but not the way you think. The "nants ingoyama" version is simply not what is being sung in the film. It is even sung sometimes in the musical version. The 2019 remake had the same original recording of the chant from the 1994 movie in the opening, I believe because of this very issue - that the opening is not real Zulu as I explained before. Worstbull (talk) 19:19, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

I added an explanation, that the "Nants ingonyama" version is the stage/musical version by Hal Leonard from 1997, while no actual official transcription of the movie-version (1994) exists. Which should satisfy everyone. Worstbull (talk) 15:14, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

The version of the chant most commonly cited today ("Nants' ingonyama bagithi/bakithi baba") does not appear to originate from the original film recordings, but was standardized later in connection with the Broadway adaptation and the publication of official sheet music. In 1997, Hal Leonard released the arrangement "Circle of Life (with Nants' Ingonyama)" and explicitly labeled the chant as "Nants' Ingonyama (Stage Version)." This created a fixed written form and translation that quickly spread through choir editions, school music programs, and later soundtrack re-releases. The version recently cited in article edits from playbillder.com also clearly refers to the Broadway stage adaptation, not the film.

There is no evidence that Disney itself ever published an official transcription of the chant in 1994. The widely known phrase is therefore almost certainly a later — and likely inaccurate — phonetic rendering, popularized by publishers and the media and left uncorrected by Disney for PR reasons (since numerous language experts have noted that the original film chant is not grammatically correct isiZulu). Multiple independent sources confirm that the stage version diverges substantially from what can actually be heard in the film. For the original movie recording, no official written text exists, which explains the significant discrepancies between the commonly printed version and the authentic sung material. Worstbull (talk) 20:46, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

It is also notable that in the 2019 remake of The Lion King, Lebo M. did not re-record the opening chants, even though virtually every other musical element of the film, including the remainder of the same intro song, was newly produced. This strongly suggests that the original chant was never based on a specific, semantically meaningful isiZulu text, but rather on improvised African-sounding syllables designed for musical effect. Biographical context supports this interpretation: Lebo M., who composed and performed the chant, did not come from an isiZulu-speaking region of Johannesburg, had limited formal education, and left South Africa as a teenager.

Combined with the absence of any official Disney transcription and the clear divergence between the film and Broadway versions, this provides strong evidence that the widely circulated "Nants' ingonyama bagithi baba" line is a later, phonetically inferred approximation rather than a faithful rendering of what is actually sung. Worstbull (talk) 20:54, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

As a disclaimer, I have no background in Zunda Nguni languages.

"Lebo M. ... did not come from an isiZulu-speaking region of Johannesburg": This is very much incorrect. He was born in Tladi, Soweto, Johannesburg and his mother tongue is Xhosa . Soweto is very linguistically diverse . Xhosa and Zulu are mutually intelligible anyhow, and both are spoken as first languages in Tladi , Zulu more so than Xhosa.

"did not re-record the opening chants": Lebo M has stated in various interviews, in the context of both the 1994 original and the 2019 remake, that the first demo tape recording of the line was the best take he ever made and he was unable to improve on it even after considerable effort . (Lebo M also directly states in this interview "‘Nants ingonyama’ spelled out means ‘Here comes a lion.’" Is this a suitable enough source?)

An earlier statement: "The lyrics before my edit ... definitely do not reflect what we hear in the opening chants of the song": This is very much a subjective statement. Correct me if this is inaccurate, but there appears to be little difference between the two sets of lyrics other than nants' ingonyama/nansi bhe inyama. To my ear, it is a perfectly reasonable explanation that in the original recording, the /o/ in ingonyama very quickly gives way to a strongly palatalized /ɲ/. In my (again, non-Bantu) personal experience, this pattern is common and even obvious in languages with palatalized consonants, but tends to lead to confusion for those who have less familiarity with such languages.

Another earlier statement: "I've searched the web for discussions and found some experts discussing it": I cannot find any experts in the linked Quora post. Of the two that make serious claims that ingonyama is wrong, one says outright "I am no expert in Zulu" and the other lists as their only source a file hosted on a Chicago elementary school's website (which also asserts ingonyama as the correct word).

And: "I have confirmation from experts from the isiZulu department of the University of Kwazulu-natal": This sounds great. Is there any way you could link to this? 204.16.59.44 (talk) 23:36, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

This now goes very much into detail and ventures far into the field of speculation without a primary source from Lebo M. himself, but it was merely a possible explanation/hypothesis for why the chant doesn't make sense in isiZulu: Sotho is the dominant language in Tladi (https://www.gcro.ac.za/outputs/map-of-the-month/detail/language-diversity-gauteng/), and Lebo M's mother tongue is isiXhosa, not isiZulu, according to himself! You even said that yourself. Although isiXhosa and isiZulu are closely related (both belong to the Nguni language family), they are not mutually intelligible, particularly in terms of phonology, pitch accents, and lexicon.

Regarding the isiZulu expert's opinion: I'll ask if I can publish the email thread.

The majority of isiZulu-natives I've read about in this context (for example on the cited Quora page) said, that the chant is nonsense, not proper isiZulu, which was what raised my initial suspicion, despite the fact that the (FULL) Nants Ingoyama-chant is simply NOT what you hear.

"that the first demo tape recording of the line was the best take he ever made and he was unable to improve on it even after considerable effort" that doesn't explain why they couldn't use a different artist - the rest of the intro in the 2019 version was also not sung by Carmen Twillie like the original, but by a different, new singer. The only explanation that really makes sense is, that it cannot be reproduced for some reason (the obvious to me is, that it's not transcribable, which explains everything else here) Worstbull (talk) 10:54, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

"they are not mutually intelligible": Perhaps you would like to correct the articles Zulu language and Xhosa language, both of which claim otherwise, if this is verifiable.

"the chant is nonsense, not proper isiZulu" Is it also not proper Xhosa? (1:33–1:37 Interviewer: "And what language is that in?" Lebo M: "It's, um, Xhosa and Zulu.") Many sources claim that the first line specifically is Zulu, but some others do say Xhosa; could this be a case of circular referencing?

Listening to and reading numerous Lebo M interviews (e.g. , , ), it seems clear to me that he wrote something meaningful at least to him and not just "nonsense"; he was deeply involved with the creative decisionmaking of the original, the Broadway production, and the remake; and he has been repeatedly both performing and speaking the same lyrics himself over the last 30 years (many recordings can be found online). However, this conversation is drifting further and further from the current scope of the article (I do not even necessarily agree that the lyrics should appear in this article at all; perhaps Lebo M's writing process should instead, as it has been reported on more than the full lyrics have been, if not extensively). 204.16.59.44 (talk) 19:35, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

The quote “Lebo M: ‘It’s, um, Xhosa and Zulu’” implicitly supports the claim that the lyrics are largely nonsensical. It is linguistically implausible for the same text to be “proper” Xhosa and Zulu at once, as these are distinct languages with different phonologies and vocabularies. Multiple native Zulu speakers, including those cited in the referenced Quora discussion and other sources, have confirmed that the lyrics do not form coherent sentences. I have also verified this with the Department of Zulu Studies at the University of South Africa, whose staff expressed essentially the same view in more formal academic terms. Worstbull (talk) 11:03, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Zulu or Xhosa?

The article claims that the opening to the song is sung in Zulu. The source cited in the "Opening" section, however, states that "nants'ingonyama" etc. is Xhosa. Zacwill (talk) 04:40, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

It is neither. It's a mix of some words and fragments of isiZulu and isiXhosa and some chants. Worstbull (talk) 12:22, 10 June 2025 (UTC)