On Monday, November 10, 2014 2:36:48 PM UTC-5, And Rosta wrote:
I realize it's not one specific poll. If your observation about consistent results has some substantive basis, then it's lots of specific polls.
I suspect there is no such thing as a consistent result across nonbullshit polls about worst sounding languages. But I am interested in being directed to a range of studies that prove my suspicion wrong.
It the results were always all over the place then that would clearly be the case. But certain languages do seem to get consistent results. For instance Italian is frequently one the the highest rankings. Arabic get very mixed results --some love it, but others hate it (however I think some of it has to do with sociopolitical issues of the day). French does pretty well too. And Japanese gets a fair amount of consistent praise. Some examples:
http://www.thetoptens.com/best-sounding-languages/
http://www.debate.org/forums/Society/topic/36130/
http://s1.zetaboards.com/anthroscape/topic/5015558/1/
http://www.city-data.com/forum/world/1447488-most-annoying-sounding-language.html
http://www.city-data.com/forum/world/649599-best-sounding-language-2.html
http://www.daytranslations.com/blog/2014/10/top-ten-sexiest-languages-world-5611
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110727163439AAIaek9
In any case, its not just that there are aesthetic considerations. There is also the simple fact that the `c/j`, `x` and `h` sounds are over represented as a simple statistic of internal comparison to other sounds in Lojban. Why should that be?