From an aesthetic standpoint, what is the most beautiful language?
Whale
French and Spanish as a close 2nd
attic greek
>>8182026
tss why not basement greek or somethin
Haitian Creole.
North Korean.
Gabrielic Irish.
Circo-Eolian
Belgian.
Australian English.
New Eurasian
Homeric Italian.
Ariosto Fiorentino
Camo-Galician.
Bardonic Saxon.
Thai Chinese.
English. In no other tongue has such a quantity and weight of beauty been wrought.
>>8182025
fag
>>8182026
cellar greek
Welsh.
>>8182019
Papiamentu, Avestan, Old Church Slavonic, Hadza, and of course Elamite.
To see written?
LINGVA LATINA
To hear spoken?
Gaidhlig na h-Alba
>>8182019
The language of LOVE!
:^) <3 bae
>>8182100
Properly pronounced Latin is beyond comparison. Truly magnificent and refined beyond anything we have today. Exposes Romance languages for the sad peasantbabble that they are.
Vulgar Latin (h- hey, guys, vvvvv-eh-neeee vvvv-eeee-deeee veeeeee-cheeeeee! joo-lee-us see-zar!) is utterly disgusting, far worse than even the ugliest of Romance languages.
>>8182072
Kek.
Ukrainian. The only thing holding it back from the recognition it deserves is a lack of influence.
>>8182201
too bad nobody agrees on what properly pronounced Latin is bruh.
>>8182019
Languages with open syllables like Italian, Latin or Japanese are often said to be more pleasant to ears. I would say Old Greek, Latin, French, German and Old Japanese are among my favorites. I strongly dislike English, Scandinavian and Semitic languages, Chinese and Russian.
>>8182019
Russian.
Russian when not spoken like a James Bond villain sounds very nice.
>>8182293
>Scandinavian
They all sound very different though.
>>8182286
English is indeed greatest for sheer quantity. After all, a language only exists through its speakers, its writers. A larger, more diverse linguistic space is necessarily stronger. Otherwise, where are the great Basque works of old? Where are the Tagalog classics?
>>8182301
Sure, so Semitic languages do, but I mean I don't like any. By the way, I may have talked about how a so-called nice language should sound but it's not limited to pronunciation, I also take in accounting writing system, grammar, vocabulary, …
>>8182039
>Haitian Creole on a list of fake languages
Savage
>>8182292
We can gather more than you might think.
>>8182305
You probably only think English has the biggest volume of output because you speak English natively.
Historically English as a language wasn't that big of a deal, and right now there's more books published annually in China than anywhere else on the planet.
>>8182019
Russian, low German spoken by a female
>>8182311
But isn't usage a huge factor? Isolated Turkish words may sound like an overly percussive drawl, but what the greatest Turkish writers do with them elevates them to a much higher level.
>>8182323
Volume alone, no.
But quality x volume? Yes, English is top dog.
>>8182019
The Arabic speech of Quran is quite beatifiul. French is also a fantastic language to hear.
>>8182333
And based on how many Chinese novels you've read in Chinese ?
>>8182323
Not output but diversity, size. English has a substantially larger vocabulary than any other language, ever.
>>8182327
Plattdüütsch is among the lowest of the low. Total peasant language, surpassed only by Pennsylvania German. The fact that it's such a close relative of Hochdeutsch only makes Hochdeutsch more amazing.
>>8182311
>writing system
But ä is the most aesthetic letter ...
>>8182210
Can you explain why you think so? I live in a community with a lot of Russians/Ukrainians and I'll admit I have a hard time differentiating the two
>>8182333
It's impossible to have a real frame of reference no matter what's your first language. English has a lot of good stuff, but so does every language. Another problem is the fact that Anglophone media is very popular thanks to US influence. Maybe the Chinese have been publishing some quality books and we don't know because we've never read them.
It's not really possible to know. Maybe English is the best, but it's not exactly likely.
>>8182343
Actually true only if we count technology-related stuff and colloquialisms.
>>8182343
Contrary to memes, there is no meaningful way to quantify which language has the biggest vocabulary. If we took the most literal approach possible then it would probably be German or some other such language with a theoretically infinite vocabulary.
>>8182328
I don't think so. Out of 100,000 people you can surely find and hear a highly competent person. Once you're beyond a significative amount of native speakers, whether 500,000 or 600,000,000 individuals know it… Seriously, what's the difference? Anyway, I think a language use is more about the the author's culture than the language itself. I love how Old Norse poets used “kennings” and I admire the creativity and complexity put in it but frankly, you could do that in almost every language. It isn't tied to Icelandic languages.
>>8182363
Actually, I'm referring to Japanese. Kanji are fascinating, and I love how the three systems overlap and complete each others so the sentences look pure and well-balanced. That's also why I don't like Arabic and Farsi.
arabic tbqh
>>8182313
>a fake language spoken by mud eaters
>>8182023
t. Dory
>>8182366
I'll admit that there isn't a huge, immediate difference to someone who speaks no Slavic languages, the way that there is a huge, immediate difference between French and Portuguese to someone who speaks no Romance languages. But it has a lot to do with the music. Ukrainian lends itself better to music than any other Slavic language or perhaps any other language. It's evident even in prose—Ukrainian speakers and writers have incredibly musical sensibilities, almost like the French but without making fools of themselves like the French do.
>>8182396
Not my argument, but agglutination and fusion don't effectively make new words in the way that Anglos think about them. To insinuate so is ridiculous.
finnish obviously
>>8182363
>But ä is the most aesthetic letter
It's. Æ.
Whatever language Mozart and Beethoven spoke.
>>8182437
Fuck off Tolkien.
>>8182448
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C78HBp-Youk
This
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEO7pinYkwM
>>8182445
How could it be any letter other than the great א?
>>8182452
The sublimity, the sublimity...
As someone who is fluent-to-native in several European languages, I offer these contributions:
1) French is the most effortlessly aesthetic; looks beautiful, sounds beautiful. Somewhat stunted/limited in its range of expression, however.
2) English is visible/audibly good, but its real power lies in expression. In this regard, it trumps all other languages; but I don't think English had/has any special qualities that led to this. Rather, it established itself rather long ago (linguistically speaking) as a global lingua franca; which allowed it to develop as freely as possible, without having to take other languages into account, or rather, cater itself to them.
3) German is pretty ugly, but it *can* sound beautiful - under very specific circumstances that involve a lot of work. Goethe proved this to a tee.
>>8182468
>Somewhat stunted
Are you kidding? Somewhat? L'academie française may just be the worst thing that could possibly happen to any language...
>>8182468
>1) French is the most effortlessly aesthetic;
what a fag
>>8182468
>but it *can* sound beautiful
it sure can:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpVazaj4lH4
>>8182483
It's right, though. I can walk to the Boulangerie and have more beautiful-sounding conversations than I might hear in a month in Germany or Turkey while buying a fucking croissant and a copy of Le Monde on the way back. Of course it's limited when I really want to put effort into speaking but it's impressive all the same. Now if only Parisians could stop spitting all over everything, figuratively and literally...
Northern orcish
>>8182501
Which is why EVERY European language that I'm aware of has some sort of regulatory institution. None are as bad as l'academie. In some suburbs of Paris, they speak a French that's nearly incomprehensible to "proper" speakers. Illiteracy rates are ridiculous, and new words take forever to enter the language and then another eternity to be standardized: and all because the great revolutionary language must remain pure...
>>8182517
And must I remind you that l'academie argued that regional languages like Norman, Basque, Bretagne do not deserve legal recognition or preservation? As if the great French roots are sacred but their sources are trash... The gall...
>>8182430
>Not my argument, but agglutination and fusion don't effectively make new words in the way that Anglos think about them. To insinuate so is ridiculous.
To directly state that you can simply quantify a language as having the biggest vocabulary and therefore it's the best language is even more ridiculous.
>>8182468
>3) German is pretty ugly
Full pleb.
>>8182533
Certainly. The entire argument is ridiculous and not worth anyone's time. English should stand on its own merits, of which it has plenty, instead of pulling bullshit statistics left and right.
>>8182468
German is beautiful and the perfect language for poetry with its ability to describe. Also was considered the romance language for a long time and to this day linguists agree. Learn German and then you can appreciate it
Polish, hebrew (sometimes), Pennsylvania dutch, I live around tons of Amish it's basically low German with a hint of some dutch influence and no guttural noises.
>>8182555
>fluent-to-native
>Learn German and then you can appreciate it
Lernen Sie zu lesen, Narr.
>>8182530
It pretty much wiped out all the patois and made French the only used language in France. A standardization of French. A pretty good achievement, if you ask me.
>>8182366
If you knew some Slavic language it's actually really really different, the pattern of the words sounds the same if that makes sense so if you don't understand it or does make sense. There's not many pauses or times when it slows down like English or French and stuff.
>>8182350
It sounds amazing though I love it, like I said better if spoken by a female lol and if wearing a dirndl it's erections inducing. I live around Amish and Pennsylvania dutch is actually quite beautiful
>>8182559
I thought Pennsylvania Dutch came from Swiss German?
>>8182580
Swiss German is truly ugly...
>>8182580
Yeah sort of, it's a really weird mix and hard to describe like it's origins don't make sense when you hear it a lot.
>>8182561
I was born in Poland and raised in east germany before the fall they are my mother tongues what do you mean ?
>>8182566
A good achievement but pointless to continue being this paranoid about in the present day. Also, you're ignoring the fact that their policies are tearing an ever-widening rift between different "kinds" of French, defined by class, education, and even just whether it's spoken or written. They should calm down.
I find hungarian beautifull.
>>8182580
High German not Swiss, and most of the Pennsylvanians came from what is today Germany.
>>8182619
>beautifull
Hungarian confirmed
What is everyone's favorite writing system? I find Hebrew irresistible for the stylistic variation offered and how well it works next to images, but Kanji/simplified Han far more appealing to look at on its own.
Catalan
>>8182640
>Take Spanish
>Remove the endings from 90% of Spanish words
>Et voilà!
>>8182638
Cyrillic.
It looks good on its own. But it also translates very well into art.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PgEmSb0cKBg
>>8182640
Though I agree with >>8182657 I have to say that it is a culturally amazing language. I lived with totally ineffectual Catalan ostensibly communist stoners in the countryside for a few months and so many people there prided themselves so much on supposedly not speaking Spanish at all. I'd love to spend more time there if it wasn't such an unhealthy place for me.
>>8182675
But that cursive...
>>8182691
Fuck cursive, man.
That shit belongs in the 4th grade and not in the 21st century.
>>8182702
Cyrillic cursive not English you faggot it's actually used for writing pretty much everything, good Cyrillic cursive is readable bad Cyrillic cursive looks like if Donald Trump took a polygraph lie test
If we're talking about looks:
>Arabic
>Devanagari scripts and related SEA alphabets
>Mongol and Manchu
Although I doubt any significant works are in Mongol or Manchu
>>8182370
highly doubt it with the CCP's history of purging and general anti intellectualism, not to mention heavy censorship
>>8182019
english of course
>>8185185
Maybe that's their secret for quality books that Anglophone plebs can't understand.
>nobody mentioning Arabic ,especially the old poems
Yall mutha fuckers need to get some listening to that chat
It's fucking art
>>8182468
>I don't think English had/has any special qualities that led to this
But English has a big dependency on monosyllabic words right? The top 44 most common english words all consist of a single syllable, and the only definite article in our vocabulary is also our most common word of 'the', which, in a way, commodifies the noun regardless of whether it is singular or plural.
So you're right to think of it as a kind of trade language, but its still very appropriate to our political orientation: a kind of centre-ish conservative country which is economical - not only with its word-to-meaning ratio - but also with its public services and establishing their gradual privatisation.
Alongside that, you've got the opening up to the free market of the romance/germanic languages of Europe, the west indian patwas through the slave trade, pidgin englishes and other post-colonial affects - even internet memes only spreads the language further:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYtAmrQUt_s
>>8182019
I dabbled while studying linguistics and I think the Montana Salish language sounds amazing. That one or Japanese.
It's all subjective tho.
>>8182019
either Russian or Italian
>>8186714
Oh and Welsh
>From an aesthetic standpoint, what is the most beautiful language?
What standpoints other than aesthetics would you judge beauty?
Chinese sounds like ass, but it looks very cool.
>>8186764
Japanese uses the Chinese writing system and adds in some phonetic characters.
Japanese is definitely the nicest sounding Language that uses kanji in my opinion also triple entendre is possible because of the ridiculously limited sounds that lead to a ridiculous amount of homophones
