Bengali language the national anthems of Bangladesh ("Amar Sonar Bangla") and India ("Jana Gana Mana") were composed in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore. The first two verses of a patriotic song written in Bengali by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, "Vande Mataram", was adopted as the "national song" of India in both the colonial period and later in 1950 in independent India. Furthermore, it is believed by many that the national anthem of Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka Matha) was inspired by a Bengali poem written by Rabindranath Tagore, while some even believe the anthem was originally written in Bengali and then translated into Sinhalese. In
National anthem of South Africa National anthem of South Africa The current national anthem of South Africa was adopted in 1997 and is a hybrid song combining new English lyrics with extracts of the 19th century hymn "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" (, ) and the Afrikaans song "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika" (), which was formerly used as the South African national anthem from the late 1930s to the mid-1990s. The South African national anthem is often referred to by its incipit of "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika", however this has never been its official title, which is simply "National anthem of South Africa". The fact that it shifts