The World's most beautiful/ugly language ?

[ValugaTheLord]

Really i do not think there can be "ugly" language..

Something that sounds "unfluid"? That's hardly can be called ugly

There is no Beauty in languages or vice versa.

 

[Cull]

Mandarin isn't actually that bad, thus I won't say "Chinese sucks", but will only say "the Cantonese dialect of Chinese" sucks.

I would just say Cantonese, but Civ OT is famous for its nitpickers.

QFT.

Although some of the accent/dialects/whatever of Mandarin are pretty bad too.

 

[W|M]

German and Dutch sound horrible. All languages east of the Netherlands/Germany are great though (except for Scottish and Irish, which are incomprehensible even though they´re meant to be English. The further North you go in England/Scotland, the more incomprehensible the accent is, until you get the likes of Glasweigian). Italian and Greek are nice too, but Greek sounds too much like Spanish without having similar words. Also, if you know a Latin language, it´s a LOT easier to learn another one (though it´s harder for Spanish-speakers to learn Portugese than the other way round, due to portugese accents such as ã, ô and ç)

 

[Mango Elephant]

German actually isn't too bad with an American accent.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

Ugly:

German
Spanish
Scandinavian languages
Russian
Greek

Beautiful:
English
Malay
Cantonese
Hokkien
Mandarin
Korean
Japanese

 

[Danielion]

Chinese sure sounds ugly for an outsider and as Chinese are - for the moment - only good at copying and obeying like slaves, I also assume it's a slave language.
They even let men scream like little girls in their operas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHPegoquV5I
I don't know which Sino-Tibetan language is uglier than the other, but Mandarin like in the clip sounds okay. What is an ugly Chinese language however is the following (which is also frowned at by Chinese themselves obviously lol):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv9wk5lgGFo

Arabic can also be an ugly language, at least when spoken by religious nutters who even avoid neologisms. But Arabic is very diverse so there's also 'nice-sounding' Arabic.

Further are ugly languages:
Esperanto
Dunglish/Denglish and variants

As for the most beautiful languages:
German
Dutch
but not when they're spoken by someone who doesn't respect the language

Further are beautiful languages:
Turkish
Finish
Hungarian
also French sounds nice, sometimes
Berber languages also are cool
so are Celtic languages.

Not to be PC-minded, but personally I know little of languages being ugly. I can find the way they're spoken to be very ugly, but that's usually it. Usually languages can improve or decline, in my opinion.
Still, I can find some languages particularly awesome.

 

[Danielion]

beautiful dutch song (2 minutes) about little girl on bike by Herman van Veen

Is there anyone who find his own lanquage ugly?

This is cool Dutch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9qvrdpFhaI

Might sound very harsh, but you have to know the language of course to appreciate it.

 

[Danielion]

Among German dialects I absolutely hate hillbilly Bavarian (and hillbilly Austrian, but Vienna dialect is fine) and Cologne. Dreadful. The whole world thinks whole Germany is like that. Idiotic Oktoberfest, Lederhosen, Bier and that ear cancer causing Blasmusik. Terrible. In opposite to that I like high German, the north sea dialect and cultivated Saxonian.

These Bavarians even aren't able to speak Standard German. People from Baden-Württemberg suffer from the same defect, though even worse (and they pride themselves in it too...). This also exists in Flanders; people who aren't able to speak Standard Dutch decently. What is most annoying is when they mix it with English all the time or speak dialect everywhere to everyone, just to cover up their lousy proficiency in the standard language of their native tongue (Francophone Belgians aren't any better, they speak an inefficient variant of French, they reduce it to a mere mode of communication).
In Bavaria they even cultivate their dialect, and also the wiki in their dialect often has a certain depth to it, and that for just a dialect...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5JtnlaG2kg

Worse than the Bavarians are the Luxemburgers. The older people among them even get angry if you dare calling their 'language' a dialect of German, which is IS! Bavarian and Alemanic differ far more from Standard High German, but with a knowledge of German you understand a lot of Luxemburgish. I wonder whether it's all part of a divide-and-conquer strategy. Because while they learn German and use it all the time, they have to do their secondary school in French and French is also official everywhere, while almost everyone speaks German his their native tongue (not counting the occasional Portuguese-speakers living there along). They're provincial, so I guess they are easily brainwashed by any media or school-system. The younger people at least call themselves German-speakers luckily.

 

[Tee Kay]

Beautiful:
Malay
Cantonese
Hokkien
Mandarin

You must be joking.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

You must be joking.

Nope! I find the Chinese languages very melodic. And I've come to love Malay through learning it.

 

[Cull]

Chinese sure sounds ugly for an outsider and as Chinese are - for the moment - only good at copying and obeying like slaves, I also assume it's a slave language.
They even let men scream like little girls in their operas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHPegoquV5I
I don't know which Sino-Tibetan language is uglier than the other, but Mandarin like in the clip sounds okay. What is an ugly Chinese language however is the following (which is also frowned at by Chinese themselves obviously lol):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv9wk5lgGFo

Copy and obeying like slaves. Slave language Are you joking?

 

[Tycho Brahe]

Ugly:
Arabic
Russian
almost voted american english as well, but its not in the league of the two others.

Beautiful:
French
Italian

I think Danish is not very beautiful language. I voted arabic still.

Some samples of danish language:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTib_pOSXPI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y7nCRC_OJA&feature=related

It's a joke, right?

Like the norwegian bit about danes who don't understand each other?

In other words, Swedes don't like their neighbors

Nah, nobody in scandinavia likes danish.

Danish language is very influenced by low german. Thats whats sets it apart from the rest of scandinavia. In other words it shares a lot of the unpopular features from dutch.

Lets make a club for the unjustly underappreciated languages.

 

[Godwynn]

Link to video.

 

[Danielion]

Copy and obeying like slaves. Slave language Are you joking?

You know the concept of 'nucai'? Sounds slave-like to me.

China also has been a dictatorship for 5,000 years and its people generally act happy enough with it, because they are very collective-minded and disciplined. Good at obeying orders, bad at thinking for themselves. I think this is a point where Chinese and actually East Asian in general have to struggle with, because I believe it makes them less innovating.

We'll see, China has potential and it's more of a world on its own.

 

[Tycho Brahe]

Link to video.

We made a foreign girl say ****! We rule! *snicker*

 

[Cull]

You know the concept of 'nucai'? Sounds slave-like to me.

China also has been a dictatorship for 5,000 years and its people generally act happy enough with it, because they are very collective-minded and disciplined. Good at obeying orders, bad at thinking for themselves. I think this is a point where Chinese and actually East Asian in general have to struggle with, because I believe it makes them less innovating.

We'll see, China has potential and it's more of a world on its own.

Yes I am aware. Its quite high possiblity that I have ancesters who were nucai. Does that make myself and as well as the language I speak slave-like?

Dictatorship, no. More of a monarchy, then a toy of the Europeans, then a toy of the Japanese, then a socialist state. And ever heard of dynasty changes. Sure was disciplined. And discipline is more good than bad.

If we're bad at thinking for ourselves, please explain why China invented gunpowder, paper, compass, and printing.

 

[Danielion]

Dictatorship, no. More of a monarchy, then a toy of the Europeans, then a toy of the Japanese, then a socialist state. And ever heard of dynasty changes. Sure was disciplined. And discipline is more good than bad.

In a way I also prefer discipline over chaos. It can also be pulled too far off edge. The example I give to you isn't Chinese, but Eastern Asian. In Japan - so an expert on the country told me - it's normal to even block off mountain roads at winter, despite the weather being safe. They just do it at some given date. I think such precision misses the point.
Don't get me wrong, also in Western societies there exists unquestioned bureaucratic following of rules, especially when political correctness is involved. I think Eastern Asians tend to take the discipline part even more serious than even Northern Europeans.

If we're bad at thinking for ourselves, please explain why China invented gunpowder, paper, compass, and printing.

That was centuries ago, but I have to agree that it was WAY before our ancestors. Back in the Dark Middle Ages Europeans usually were mindless peasants (servs) who just did what was asked of them. Also during the Classic Era (due to limitations in the economy of that era) the overwhelming majority of people consisted of slaves. Not that it was different elsewhere in the world back in the day.

 

[Cull]

I'll take Eastern discipline>Western laziness.

 

[Danielion]

Well, I - on my turn - take Northern European work ethic above Southern European ease. That's for sure.

 

[W|M]

I prefer South European ease