The World's most beautiful/ugly language ?

[Jan H]

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

That's brilliant!

 

[Tycho Brahe]

I'll take Eastern discipline>Western laziness.

You can have it

 

[storealex]

What a load of generalisations about other cultures. I understand why Cull feel offended, slave language? WTH, Chinese can be very beautiful.

And I have never heard anyone call Northern Europeans lazy. Ordnung muss sein.

 

[Danielion]

There's one saying in the English language: "Two Wongs don't make a White."
Might sound racist, but it was intended as a joke by Arthur Calwell, because of a Chinese resident called Wong wrongly being threatened with deportation.

 

[NetGear]

How this thread still survives amazes me.

Its a troll bait heaven.

 

[Cynovolans]

I meant to vote German for ugliest language,

but anyway, Xhosa is beautiful.

 

[fdgsgds]

Most beautiful, IMO:
English (hey, it's my own language; it doesn't sound "ugly)
Swahili (related to Arabic, it sounds awesome)
Arabic
Portuguese (sometimes, just as long as the entire sentence isn't nasal)

Ugliest:
Chinese
Spanish (something about hearing it pisses me off to such an extent... )
Dutch (an odd, mushy-sounding German; just like Swiss German)
Italian

I take French, which I call a "mushy" language. A lot of the words are "mushed" together. I also am learning German, which I think sounds good. Latin sounds plain, but hey, no one speaks it as a first anymore.

Of course, it does depend on the speaker. Some people can make the prettiest language sound dumb, and some can make the ugliest language sound cool.

Now, the absolute worst sounding languages are foreign languages such as French or Hindi or Arabic spoken with an American accent.

 

[W|M]

Portuguese (sometimes, just as long as the entire sentence isn't nasal)

Try writing it. The grammar rules are INSANE.

 

[Danielion]

In Portuguese even the infinitive gets declined. Crazy language, but the coolest among the Romance languages in my opinion. Personally I like the archaic European Portuguese more. While the colloquial Brazilian Portuguese sounds nice, I prefer the written language there and I hope they'll keep retaining their diglossia.

Also, you also have all the original Latin subjunctive forms in the indicative mood. A language which still actively uses its future subjunctive sure has my respect.

I sadly don't speak it, but I know what I would be up against if I were to learn this language.

 

[Bluemofia]

I don't think any language sounds bad.

German has the stereotype attached to it, yet most of the time when spoken normally, it sounds fairly pleasant (at least, when I hear it). Rammstein and old war films aren't exactly the best way to judge German, much like using punk rock or old western films to judge English.

It simply depends on how a person chooses to accent things.

 

[The Imp]

Ugly:

German
Spanish
Scandinavian languages
Russian
Greek

Beautiful:
English
Malay
Cantonese
Hokkien
Mandarin
Korean
Japanese

Saying Cantonese is beautiful is a borderline crime against humanity. May god have mercy on your soul.

 

[Danielion]

Saying Cantonese is beautiful is a borderline crime against humanity. May god have mercy on your soul.

I don't know where the disdain for Cantonese comes from? What makes it so ugly then? I have heard it's a lot more direct than Mandarin, or am I wrong? HK still has prestige to it so I don't see this language disappearing any time soon, but Mandarin has won the overall plea so it seems.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Map_of_sinitic_languages-en.svg

 

[W|M]

EDIT: X-Post

 

[Danielion]

Here's some Portuguese for you fellows:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89JbzIhIwlE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRqI5R6L7ow

I can say that Brazilian sounds nicer. I also have heard that many speakers of European Portuguese mistakenly get confused for speakers of a Slavic language. LOL!

Here's some fado music in Frisian by the way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKGcqx7eCvQ (just something different).

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

The Portuguese word for "knife" is something best not shouted out loud.

 

[Arakhor]

When I was 11 and learning German for the first time, I was thrilled to learn that "vater" was German for "father" and was pronounced "farter". Better yet, "grandfather" was "groβvater", pronounced "gross farter". I've grown up since then

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

Saying Cantonese is beautiful is a borderline crime against humanity. May god have mercy on your soul.

LOL!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdw4Oz1rp7w

I find it quite awesome.

你識唔識講廣東話呀?

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

It's more of a testament to her voice that she makes it sound good. The average person on the street, not so much.

 

[Danielion]

When I was 11 and learning German for the first time, I was thrilled to learn that "vater" was German for "father" and was pronounced "farter". Better yet, "grandfather" was "groβvater", pronounced "gross farter". I've grown up since then

ALT + 225 for the ß

It's more of a testament to her voice that she makes it sound good. The average person on the street, not so much.

Link to video.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

It's more of a testament to her voice that she makes it sound good. The average person on the street, not so much.

Man, you guys are stubborn. I love listening to just normal people speak Cantonese.