A study has just revealed the ranking of the least attractive languages around the world: they hardly make the hearts of those who listen to them beat. Conversely, Italian, a very singing language, comes at the top of the podium. Ranking.
Italian is the most attractive language in the world, according to a study conducted by the online learning platform Preply, which analyzed variations in heart rate. “The resting heart rate is 65 BPM (beats per minute). The higher the percentage of increase in heart rate, the more “attractive” the language can be considered.“, specifies the study. Thus, people who listened to Italian speaking saw their heart rate increase by 23%. Portuguese is ranked in second position, followed by the language of Molière, often associated with romanticism, and finally Greek. If Mediterranean languages are rather popular around the world, others don’t really seem to make everyone’s heart beat.
What is the least attractive language?
According to the study, Dutch tops the list of least attractive languages, with an increase in heart rate of only 12%. This language, the most widespread in the Netherlands, is also spoken by nearly 23.5 million people. German and Japanese, which both produce a 15% increase in heart rate, are followed by Chinese, which is also one of the least popular languages. Another Asian language, Chinese, finished in fourth place in this ranking.
According to Aleksandra Stevanovic, a linguist and translator with a degree in Swedish language and Scandinavian literature, “languages considered easy to sing, such as Italian, follow the pattern of a vowel and a consonant: each syllable ends in a vowel. These languages sound musical to the human ear and can be heard as more “attractive”. On the other hand, languages with more consonant clusters are perceived as unmusical. These languages - including Slavic languages and Dutch – are therefore often perceived as less “attractive“, she analyzes.