What makes a languages beautiful and other language ugly ?

[Someone here]

I think that some languages are objectively more beautiful or less beautiful than others.

My  impression of a language is heavily linked with what my mother tongue is(Indian), and what other languages i already speak(English).

For example, many people say German sounds very “rough” and generally don’t like it. I started learning German a while ago and the more I studied, the more this “roughness” disappeared. Now that I somewhat speak it, it actually sounds very pleasing

  But still,  German sounds  rough compared to French. French is the most sexy and beautiful language in the world . I don't know why honestly lol 

There also might be a psychological factor in this. People from the Anglo-sphere stereotype Germans as very orderly, cold and serious individuals. And so naturally their languages must reflect that, no?

So, What makes some languages sound more beautiful than others?

[Someone here]

11 minutes ago, JoeVolcano said:

Could be for the same reasons why we tend to think soft smooth curves are more beautiful than hard sharp edges and angles. Perhaps because the former tend to be more natural / nature-like than the latter, and we evolved in nature afterall.

Sound can be similarly soft/smooth/curvey vs. hard/sharp/edgy. Just look at a sinewave vs. a squarewave for example.

When I think of German, I think "Halt!"

When I think of French, I think "Oui oui hon hon."

Et voila!

Cheers

I think Personal taste seems to play a lot into peoples' opinion of which languages sound beautiful compared to others. Some prefer the logical nature of languages like German whilst others prefer languages that appear romantic i.e. the romantic languages; French, Spanish and Italian. I'd also say any language which seems different to ones own has a certain appeal and allure.

Cheers 

[Asayake]

French is an amazing language to me. I think the way it flows is naturally poetic and musical. I think the fact that there are so(in my opinion) many amazing French artists, musicians, composers, directors, etc. might be correlated to the way their language is spoken. It's not only a practical language, it's an art in itself.

[Epikur]

There was this one girl she was learning Russian. I asked her why she does not go for Romanic languages because I think they are more beautiful. She said she likes rough languages. Romanic languages feels like toys she said. 

Maybe one angle to look at it is in terms of sports. There are sports that are more nice to look at and there are sports like wrestling where it is like war. So maybe Russian is about seriousness and not think to much about singing and beauty but to prepare for the next war.

Romanic languages had this peak culture for a long time where it might have soften the edges and made the language more beautiful.

 

[Yarco]

Tongue rolling = beautiful. Spanish, Italian are the most romantic of the romantic languages. They also tend to be lighter and faster, like a bird chirping.

Heavy wet languages with lots of phlegm-y sounds like they're horking up mucus = gross. German, Scottish, Irish. I think the term is glottal stop, but I'm not a linguist so I'm having a hard time describing the exact "ugly" sounds associated.

In between you've got something like Portuguese which sounds like a wet Spanish to me. 

Russian has lots of tongue rolls like Spanish but they're much shorter and all the words sound harsher overall.

Dutch is ugly to me because it's like German with even wetter sounds, plus they add a lot of OOO sounds that makes it sound ridiculous.

Danish/Norwegian/Swedish have a similar problem with the ooo noises and tone randomly rising up and down that makes them sound silly as well.

The various tones in Chinese give it a singing quality and make it more beautiful.

Japanese sounds intelligent and competent. I don't know if I classify it as beautiful or ugly, it just commands respect, similar to a really posh English accent.

Korean is a bit too choppy due to the short words.

I'm probably too biased to say if English is beautiful or ugly, but I'd say it's too slow. On average Japanese is spoken at 7.84 syllables per second while English is only 6.19. So a Japanese person can say an additional 100 words per minute or almost an extra 6,000 words per hour!

[King Merk]

I’ve noticed there’s a certain beauty to be found in languages that I don’t speak/understand. They sound very “artsy” if you will.

Versus languages I do know or are learning lose that “artsy” sound to them because I’m so busy meaning making in my mind. 

[AtheisticNonduality]

17 hours ago, Yarco said:

Spanish

[JarretFold]

I think it's just a matter of habit and taste. They can't be ugly since there's gonna be people who love it. And our tastes aren't more important than others.

[AtheisticNonduality]

@JarretFold I don't agree with your taste here!

[Carl-Richard]

Norwegian dialects vary widely in terms of tonality and vocalizations, and my dialect (Bergensk) is considered the least pleasant one according to other Norwegians. Bergen used to be in the Hansaetic league, which created a simplified language and the harsh uvular R-sound, and it's probably also the dialect that is closest to German for that reason ?

[jimwell]

The best language is superior in functionality (grammar and logic), simplicity (grammar and vocabulary), and how it sounds (determined instinctively). 

I'm using my smartphone to write this post so I can't expound. 

I have heard many languages. When it comes to the most beautiful-sounding language, I must say Mandarin Chinese. 

I'm not sure which the least beautiful-sounding language is. But Russian is a top contender. 

[The Mystical Man]

I don't know if languages can be objectively beautiful, but they can definitely be objectively difficult. For example, the German language is much more difficult than the English language. German can be beautiful, but you need to be extremely good at it to express the potential beauty of the German language. For example, Süskind's Perfume has some of the best German prose I've ever read. And the German translation of Huxley's Heaven and Hell was a joy to read. However, if you can't reach that extremely high standard, German isn't going to sound particularly beautiful. The English language, on the other hand, almost always sounds like music to me; I love its simplicity, flexibility, and elegance. But that's just my opinion. A lot of people say that French is a beautiful language, but I can't agree with that. Maybe if I studied French more, I'd recognize its beauty. Maybe that's what it comes down to: how much you've studied a language. 

Edited July 6, 2022 by The Mystical Man