Best Singing Language

[Imrahil91]

Which language, in your opinion (it doesn't matter how you judge it), is the best singing language? I've added some of the most common languages in the poll, but feel free to say some other ones.
My favorites are English, Italian and Russian, but I think Italian is the most beautiful. There are so many good songs in Italian, with many singers from Pavarotti and Domenico Modugno to Dean Martin and Raffaella Carrà. And there's also something abouot not understanding the words, but only the melody.
I also think my own language, Norwegian, is usually only good for funny songs.

 

[Lillefix]

I was going to say italian too


Link to video.

 

[PeteAtoms]

I like the Scottish folk songs and whatnot, is that Gaelic? I dunno.

Latin is also cool.

 

[Traitorfish]

I like the Scottish folk songs and whatnot, is that Gaelic? I dunno.

Well, that depends entirely on whether it's in Gaelic, Scots or just plain old Scottish English. We have all three.

But, yeah, the Celtic languages sound great if sung properly. They seem to have a natural melody to them which lends itself very well to music.

 

[Huayna Capac357]

German. Proof? Du Hast German is waaay better than Du Hast English

German:

Link to video.

English:

Link to video.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

English and French.

 

[scherbchen]

English with a slight lead over German followed by Spanish and French.

terribly depends on the kind of music, though. German works very well for alternative music as well as classical, imho, but can be utterly corny in a pop song. in fact most pop music songs that do it well are very much lauded over here because it has been so rare in the past.

 

[Annex]

German. Proof? Du Hast German is waaay better than Du Hast English

Thats not fair, Rammstein's songs are made to be sung in German.

 

[dannyshenanigan]

I would say one of the Romance languages, specifically Spanish or Italian. The words just roll of the tongue.

 

[duckduckswan]

I'll vote what it's not, Chinese. My first year in Auckland they had a big festival celebrating the Chinese New Year [of the pig] and at one end of the park they had a very large stage set up for karaoke. Lots of people came up, did their thing in front of hundreds of people. This tiny asian woman stood up and broke out authentic Chinese opera of some sort. It was god awful, it sounded like someone was beating a cat to death with a rusty piece of sheet metal.

I was howling with laughter at how ear piercingly bad (to my Western ears) this cacophony from hell was, my Chinese flatmate was insulted and kept saying how incredibly difficult it was to sing like that. I replied with something along the lines with "I'm [expletive] glad it's hard to do else the world will go deaf by chopping off their ears." It truly was something to record, just so I could use it to punish people with.

 

[Dachs]

what shekwan said

Thats not fair, Rammstein's songs are made to be sung in German.

It's better for all involved if they're not sung at all, of course.

 

[Love]

I really really like swedish as a singing language.

And french.

 

[azzaman333]

Anything that lacks auto-tune.

 

[Japanrocks12]

I'll say Korean, even though it is not an option.

 

[Mirc]

Romance languages, hands down. If I had to order them according to my preference (as singing languages), I'd say they go like this: Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese. I voted Italian in the poll. I'm excluding Romanian from the list because it's my native language and there's no way to be objective about it. For what it's worth, I like it quite a lot as a singing language, TBH.

Actually I think that English can work quite well in songs, although I'm not usually crazy about its general sound. Russian, too, sounds quite good while sung. Although German is one of my favorite languages, I don't think it sounds too well while sung, although there are certainly a number of exceptions.

 

[Tee Kay]

I'll vote what it's not, Chinese.

I am Asian and I agree with this statement.

 

[warpus]

English, because most of the bands I listen to sing in English. Also, it is only one of three languages I understand, and I really don't think that German makes a good singing language. Polish is slightly better, but English beats both hands down.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

Unsurprisingly, english.

 

[Hakim]

I prefer singing to be in my mother tongue (Swedish).

Bossa nova can of course only be sung in one language - Portuguese - otherwise it's not true bossa.

 

[Shekwan]

German. Proof? Du Hast German is waaay better than Du Hast English

German:

Link to video.

English:

Link to video.

what shekwan said

It's better for all involved if they're not sung at all, of course.

I agree with both these statements. We should both bow down to the artistic integrity of trololoish as well as dismiss those who listen to Rammstein.

I prefer singing to be in my mother tongue (Swedish).

Bossa nova can of course only be sung in one language - Portuguese - otherwise it's not true bossa.

My mother tongue sounds like drunken French.