Was macht eine Sprache schön oder hässlich? | SWR Wissen

If you see my last name, you know it right away. I have Italian roots. I grew up with two languages. German and Italian. Somehow I always had the feeling that when I speak Italian in Germany, everyone thinks it's super nice. But as soon as I speak German in Italy, the enthusiasm is somehow limited. Okay sports friends, let's take a break in the beer garden and you pay the first round. And maybe that's why I wake up every time someone makes fun of the German language again. Schiller and Goethe can't help it either. For many, German sounds loud and aggressive. Just not as nice as Italian. Some even say that German is one of the ugliest languages in the world. But is there anything scientific about it? So can you objectively measure whether a language is beautiful or ugly? And if so, is German really the ugliest of all? Simply put, it just has to do with the sound of a language, whether we find it beautiful or ugly. So does German have a few sound characteristics that sound particularly hard? Could be, because in my research I have repeatedly come across three special characteristics that distinguish German from many other languages. For example, the many grating sounds. Like F or S. If you speak them, you have to form a tight spot in your mouth and push the air through with a lot of force. The air then grates on your lips and a hiss occurs. Ach is another one. Pay attention to words like crash or Bach. If you speak them, it scratches in the back of your throat. Because of the ach, the words get a scratchy, throaty sound. Okay, it sounds a bit like pulling steel wool through the drain. German is full of such grating sounds. Especially compared to Italian, the difference is blatant. Take a look at this sentence, for example. In the night when Ronja was born, the thunder rolled over the mountains. There are 32 grating sounds in it. And now the same sentence in Italian. The next feature doesn't just sound unpleasant, but also makes you have a real knot in your tongue when speaking. The many consonant piles. Strumpf, for example. There is only one soft vowel in the middle, before and after only hard consonants. Or even worse, Eichhörnchen. Especially non-native speakers really make the many consonants in such words desperate. It's different in Italian. In Italian, not only almost all words end, but also most syllables on vowels. So A, E, I, O or U. Amore, volare, for example. As a child in Italy, I always thought, when my aunts talk at the table, they sing. So those were the many vowels. They give the language this sing-sing and this melody when speaking. Well, in German it is exactly the other way around. Most syllables end with hard consonants. For example, Schwester or Denken. But that wasn't all. There is one more thing that gives you a real headache when speaking German. The many endless words. Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz is one of them. Or Veranstaltungsinformationsdienst. But it goes even further. Grundstücksverkehrsgenehmigungszuständigkeitsübertragungsverordnung is, according to Duden, the longest German word with 67 letters. And 47 of them are consonants, by the way. Because of the many consonants and the endless words, German just sounds harder and more complicated than most other languages. And on social media, there are many clips that make fun of it. Surprise! The video has 35 million views on YouTube. And who would have thought, while Italian or French sound like music to the ears, Papier! sounds like Schmeckerling! Sounds like Schmeckerling! But the video also uses blatant clichés. The Frenchwoman sits in front of the camera with a baguette and smokes Papier. Then the German comes with a beer glass and a wedding cap and says the word Schmetterling. Such prejudices definitely have an influence on how we perceive the language. In France, you think of good wine, the Mona Lisa, or Paris, the city of love. Well, it makes sense that we perceive French as rather gentle and romantic. And what do you think of Germany? Hitler and the crimes of the Nazis are inseparable from German history. In the Second World War, the Germans were the enemy and occupier in many countries. For the victims of the Wehrmacht, German became the language of the Holocaust and the war. Panzer, SS, Nazi and Führer are still among the most famous German words today. And films like The Great Dictator made the screaming Nazi known all over the world. And it continues to this day. When Germans appear in films as evil Nazis again and again, it burns into our heads. That means, if someone finds German ugly, it doesn't necessarily have to be because of the language itself. It may be that the person simply has a bad image of Germany. But where do we want to know now whether the first theory is correct, that the sound of the language is unpleasant, or whether the second theory is correct, that it is due to prejudice? How do you want to keep that apart? The authors of this study had the same problem. In a complex investigation, they interviewed more than 800 people from different countries to find out whether some languages sound objectively more beautiful than others. In order to cover as many cultures as possible, the researchers tested 228 languages from almost all parts of the world. The participants watched the same film clips in the different languages and then rated on a scale of 0 to 100 how well they liked the language. On the far left, the losers with the fewest points and on the right, the favorites. So, and how did German do now? Not bad at all. 50.8 points. But it's still not enough for the winner's staircase. There, Italian with 61.2 points, Spanish with 63.3 points and English with 68 points. So, points for Italian and English. At first glance, it looks like this, but the researchers wanted to make sure that the participants only rated the sound of the language and were not influenced by their prejudices. To separate this cleanly, they should answer two questions after each clip. Do you recognize the language and do you know where it is spoken from? Because if you don't recognize the language and don't know anything about the country where it comes from, you can't have any prejudices. Then only the sound of the language is rated and nothing else. And then? Then the differences disappear and all languages are rated as equally beautiful. According to the study, how the language sounds has no influence on how well or how badly it is cut. Other things were much more important for this. If we already know a language, then according to the study we prefer it than a language that we don't know yet. All right, then it's the cultural prejudices. Yes, but not only. There is also the familiarity bonus when we believe we know the language, but can't say exactly where it comes from. So it's enough if the language seems familiar to us. It is also important whether we like the voice. In the study, female fixed voices were best cut. A sympathetic voice can already make the difference. Okay, so I like the result, because the most beautiful or the ugliest language does not exist. So German is out of the cut. Beauty is relative and that is no different with language. Whether someone likes a language depends on where the person comes from, what mother tongue they speak and whether they like the voice they speak. And yes, prejudices and cultural stereotypes also play a role. This does not mean that the sound does not matter at all. But there are no general sound characteristics that all people in the world find equally beautiful or ugly. At least the results of this one study clearly indicate this direction. So if someone claims the next time German would be the most unattractive language in the world, you can stay relaxed and just send him or her this video. And if your thirst for knowledge is not yet satisfied, then take a look at these two videos. And if you don't want to miss any more videos, feel free to subscribe to the channel.