Folk songs outlast most popular songs, and they may also be much older than art songs; for the latter generally go back to the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries at most, while some folk songs survive from the Middle Ages or earlier.

• 民歌的生命力比大部分的流行歌曲更长久，比美声歌曲更古老，因为美声歌曲至多起始于十八或十九世纪，而有些民歌则在中世纪或更早的年代就已产生。