Raindrops. A crackling fire. Birdsong. There are certain sounds that everyone, no matter what corner of the globe they’re in, likes to hear. We share an appreciation for these sounds as part of our human experience, regardless of culture, religion, or borders. Similarly, one Harvard study proclaimed that music too is a cultural universal, in that there are certain melodies, rhythms, and notes that “just fit” certain occasions and events, no matter what corner of the globe you are in. Whether infant or ancient, people connect with the sound of music.
While most of us may not sing on a daily basis (or at least sing well enough to classify it as music), we do use our voices to produce a symphony of sounds each day through language. Our verbal communication has become so advanced and full of nuance that it’s easy to forget that every time we have a conversation, whether we’re ordering a latte or telling a partner we love them, we are simply producing a collection of sounds.
If we find certain sounds in nature and music to be inherently pleasing to the ear, it would then follow that the world’s 7,000+ languages should have certain sounds and phonemes that we all universally enjoy. Subsequently, whichever languages most frequently feature these lovely sounds (and less frequently feature the abrasive sounds we don’t like) could be considered more beautiful than others.
And for the most part, we believe that. If you grew up in the US, for example, you probably feel that French and Italian sound beautiful, while German sounds harsh and unpleasant. But is that because of the actual sounds in the languages themselves? A recent study took this topic to task, and the results may surprise you.
The Lund University Study
The question was simple – “Do some languages sound more beautiful than others?” The setup was also quite straightforward – The study asked 820 people around the world to listen to a short sample of different languages and then answer two questions. “Do you recognize this language?” and “How much do you like the sounds of this language?” A total of 228 languages were presented throughout the study, and respondents were asked to answer on a scale that ranged from “Not at all” to “Very much.”
The Results
The study showed that by and large, we do not find languages beautiful or ugly based on their specific sounds. We may believe that we do, but the study indicated that respondents did not find the more guttural languages to be ugly, and the supposedly more mellifluous sounds of smooth vowels were not rated as more pleasing.
There were certainly preferences for languages, but they did not correlate to the sounds of the languages themselves. They related, rather, to that key first question in the study – “Do you recognize this language?”
If respondents thought they recognized the language, they rated it as sounding more pleasant than other languages. Simply put, if we are familiar with the language, we tend to think it sounds prettier than if it seems peculiar or unfamiliar. That means no languages are universally considered the most pleasant to hear, but rather people around the world are drawn more to the ones with which they are familiar. For example, native Chinese speakers preferred Mandarin, English, and Japanese, all of which they would commonly encounter in daily life.
Stereotypes and the American Perception of Beautiful Languages
So why are we brought up in the US believing that the Romance languages are beautiful, while Germanic and Arabic languages are not? Most of this is likely due to our own associations with those languages rather than their actual phonemes. While we may not encounter a great deal of French or Italian on a daily basis, we have learned in school to associate those cultures with beauty in all forms – sculpture, opera, painting, etc. The Italian language, for example, enjoys a bit of a halo effect, as we directly use some of its words for music itself, such as the words crescendo, staccato, and a capella. It would only make sense that beautiful things were created in a beautiful language.
Conversely, most of our exposure to German and Russian likely came from studying WWII and the Cold War, plus several generations of Hollywood bad guys barking orders in German and plotting to take over the world in Russian. So we have to question whether we really find the German and Russian languages themselves to be harsh and abrasive or if we are just experiencing a sort of xenophobic hangover from previous eras.
Final Thoughts
The enjoyment of different languages and sounds is all down to personal preference, but it does us well to keep in mind that even a globally-minded person with an interest in linguistics is not immune to subconscious stereotyping. And while the study’s results may indicate that we find familiar languages to be more beautiful, that can be interpreted more as an invitation to explore more cultures and languages to discover their own charm. And if you’re ready to start experiencing the beauty of a less familiar language right now, give the captivating clicks and pops of the Hadzabe language a listen.
