| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6] > | Which language is the most beautiful language for you? Thread poster: wonita (X)
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Heinrich Pesch 
Finland
Local time: 11:38
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
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| Aren't they all? | Apr 3, 2011 |
Impossible to tell objectively, like asking people which child is the most beautiful.
German sounds most beautiful to me when spoken by Dutch, French or English people.
When travelling in Armenia last year I was taken by the beauty of the script and the polite way people use their language in conversation.
| | | | Williamson
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:38
Flemish to English
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| No preferences | Apr 3, 2011 |
Bin Tiede wrote:
Sorry to say that, as if I had no sense of patriotism. But my mother tongue sounds monotonous therefore boring for me, and its grammar is also a bit chaotic, very diffficult to teach.
I don’t like German either, sounds too hard.
Hope I will change my mind in the future.
Attended a course of your mother-tongue. The basic four tones were very confusing to me. If tend to forget Characters and number of strokes. The syntax is completely different from anything I know, very simple in comparison to say French or German.
It is made up of a structure like little children use in the West.
Why are some in love with Italian?
English spoken like inspector Clouseau perhaps?
| | | | | Ecco anche io! | Apr 3, 2011 |
veratek wrote:
Exclusively from an oral standpoint, currently, it's Italian, hands down.
For me every language has its beauty, depending also on the experience you have of it, friendly people talking to you in there language gives you a great experience of it! On the contrary of you have bad experiences you might start to dislike it.
Reading poetry is a good way to have a positive experience of the language, and gives you clues on the way of thinking that is imposed by the structure. I am currently learning German and I am still amazed by those long sentences ending with two verbs.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:38
Member (2008)
Italian to English
All languages are beautiful, but only when used correctly and elegantly.
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| I could'nt agree more... | Apr 3, 2011 |
Tom in London wrote:
All languages are beautiful, but only when used correctly and elegantly.
| | | | opolt
Germany
Local time: 10:38
English to German
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| True, all of them, but ... | Apr 3, 2011 |
... somehow one develops a preference, like with food or anything else that matters in life ... I guess it largely depends on the emotional context, and also on what is fashionable in your community.
In Eastern Germany, Russian was compulsary at school, and I was not too bad at it (but subsequently forgot it almost completely). However, Russian was the language of the Politburo, Soviet bureaucracy, Stalin, the Red Army and things much worse, so most people had developed a strong dis... See more ... somehow one develops a preference, like with food or anything else that matters in life ... I guess it largely depends on the emotional context, and also on what is fashionable in your community.
In Eastern Germany, Russian was compulsary at school, and I was not too bad at it (but subsequently forgot it almost completely). However, Russian was the language of the Politburo, Soviet bureaucracy, Stalin, the Red Army and things much worse, so most people had developed a strong dislike of Russian, and even if you loved learning languages (like I did), you couldn't help feeling that somehow Russian sounded clumsy and primitive.
Today, in the (western!) part of Berlin where I live, there is a large Russian community, and I can hear Russian every day on the street (much more frequently than in former East Berlin!). There are many Russian shops around, and a Russian 24/7 supermarket and eatery around the corner where the whole community seems to meet during weekends. -- It now sounds very beautiful, almost poetic to me, and I have discovered that I still remember quite a number of expressions. So I think, as our relationship with Russia has changed for the better, so have our feelings towards its language.
(The only thing that I don't like about Russian today is the Cyrillic alphabet, at least in its printed form -- but again that's a very personal thing.)
[Edited at 2011-04-03 11:47 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Beauty is in the eye of the beholder | Apr 3, 2011 |
Have a look at the essay "Italian is Beautiful, German is Ugly" by Howard Giles and Nancy Niedzielski in "Language Myths" edited by Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill.
| | | | Holly Nathan (X)
Italy
Local time: 10:38
Italian to English
| the language of love :) | Apr 3, 2011 |
What I mean is the language created by a boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife couple (mixed nationalities), based upon their two native languages and used just between them. Their sentences will start in Italian, slip into English, then finish off back in Italian. A verb or noun can even start off in Italian and then finish in English. I think anybody who has ever been in a relationship with someone who speaks a different language will know what I mean. I think it's great. I have two friends (he... See more What I mean is the language created by a boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife couple (mixed nationalities), based upon their two native languages and used just between them. Their sentences will start in Italian, slip into English, then finish off back in Italian. A verb or noun can even start off in Italian and then finish in English. I think anybody who has ever been in a relationship with someone who speaks a different language will know what I mean. I think it's great. I have two friends (he is Italian, she is English) who have even invented a name for their funny mix of Italian/English that they speak when together (but the first bit of the word is from an Italian swear word and proz would slap my wrists if I wrote it). ▲ Collapse
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Tatty
Local time: 10:38
Spanish to English
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Hands down, in my opinion too.
| | | | Trinh Do
Australia
Member (2007)
English to Vietnamese
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| I agree with this reply | Apr 3, 2011 |
Madeleine MacRae Klintebo wrote:
Have a look at the essay "Italian is Beautiful, German is Ugly" by Howard Giles and Nancy Niedzielski in "Language Myths" edited by Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill.
Definitely, 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder' - English is very beautiful to me as regards its literature, but so is French and Vietnamese. I have a very positive experience with German so I think they all have the same beauty level.
| | | | Amy Duncan (X)
Brazil
Local time: 05:38
Portuguese to English
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| All are beautiful and interesting... | Apr 3, 2011 |
But my favorite is Brazilian Portuguese spoken here in Rio de Janeiro, and especially sung.
I also like the sound of Japanese very much. As for my native tongue, English, I have no way of judging what it sounds like...has anyone else found this to be true about their native language?
| | | | | Arabic .... Read poems if you do not belive me | Apr 3, 2011 |
i must say that Arabic is the most rich in vocabulary and deep and amazing in figurative language. being an Arab my self is not the reason of this preference, but also the testimony of many foreigners who happened to learn and eventually fall in love with this language. you will find this richness obvious in synonyms , and yet with delicate difference that only a native would recognize by heart.
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veratek
Brazil
Local time: 05:38
French to English
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| beauty is both subjective and objective | Apr 3, 2011 |
Madeleine MacRae Klintebo wrote:
Have a look at the essay "Italian is Beautiful, German is Ugly" by Howard Giles and Nancy Niedzielski in "Language Myths" edited by Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill.
I took a quick look and I found it too geared for dealing with silly attitudes which may prevail throughout many corners of the US (apparently their main contextual realm). I think their article is useful for the problem they are trying to address, but not to discuss the larger topic of differences in aesthetics in languages.
I believe the discussion on what is beauty and aesthetic quality can never be reduced to a conclusion stating that everything is beautiful (or more particularly here, that every language is beautiful).
This ridiculous approach to theorizing beauty consequently renders null the very meaning of the concept of beauty (and obviously of it's opposite: ugliness). While it is always necessary to investigate and reflect on what influences our structures of aesthetic hierarchies and definitions, the fact that they are imbued with a socially conditioned political and historical dimension does not eliminate the real aspect of the differences in the aesthetic component nor in its experience.
Within a particular aesthetic framework, Italian is magnificent and German and Chinese are quite ugly. There is nothing wrong in perceiving these latter two languages as ugly, if this aesthetic qualification is not a result of camouflaged negative prejudices against the German and Chinese peoples. The issue, however, and the Bauer article certainly focuses on it, is that many people do have all kinds of such problematic prejudices and value judgments influencing their aesthetic evaluations of language. To further complicate things, a language is tied to the very image of the people who speak it. So if you say German is ugly, it seems you are automatically implying there is something wrong with the German people. However, this certainly need not be the case in many aesthetic evaluations. In such cases, the aforementioned authors have nothing to contribute.
They conclude, "we believe views about the beauty and ugliness of languages are built on cultural norms, pressures and social connotations."
That's only part of it, and that's ignoring the enormously salient and fundamental aesthetic component that each language inherently possesses. To the listener, a language provides an experience that is both sensorial and intellectual, and this experience and its evaluation will only be partially determined by norms and pressures of a political and social nature. The latter only partially address the aesthetic universe that each language possesses and which can either be very beautiful or very ugly or anywhere in between, depending on the aesthetic framework used to evaluate it.
Within a particular aesthetic framework, quality and beauty hierarchies are somewhat subjective but also quite objective, and to pretend otherwise is quite parochial.
[Edited at 2011-04-03 14:01 GMT]
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Unaffected English is the most beautiful language for me. The next is English with a French accent. Those of us who are a little older remember with pleasure Charles Boyer and Maurice Chevalier who practised the art.
The most important languge is a person's first language. Some really lucky people have more than one first!
[Edited at 2011-04-03 15:48 GMT]
[Edited at 2011-04-03 15:48 GMT]
| | | | wonita (X)
China
Local time: 04:38
TOPIC STARTER | All children are beautiful, | Apr 3, 2011 |
Heinrich Pesch wrote:
Impossible to tell objectively, like asking people which child is the most beautiful.
but some are more beautiful than the other...
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