Elves from the locally based Eriksen Translations language company crooned the holiday classic in at least 12 tongues in the plaza at Brooklyn's Borough Hall, where the 40-foot-tall balsam fir from Vermont stands.
Brooklyn officials say their borough has nearly 100 ethnic groups speaking more than 135 languages. They say of the city's five boroughs only Queens is more diverse.
At Monday night's tree-lighting ceremony "Jingle Bells" was sung in languages including English, Portuguese, Romanian, Mandarin Chinese, Swedish, Norwegian, Korean, Japanese, Danish and German.
A Spanish version goes, "Din don dan, din don dan / Vamos a cantar."
And in French it's, "Vive le vent, vive le vent / Vive le vent d'hiver."
