In an online poll conducted in 2018, a majority of language learners voted French as the most beautiful language… except the French themselves, who overwhelmingly voted for Italian. I agree. Were it not for my wonderful father who left when I was a kid and deprived me of my grandparents, I'd speak the language. Now I find I'm too lazy to start learning it (a shame). That being said, though Italian sounds more beautiful (more poetic, more romantic and melodic), English remains my favourite language. And French… well of course I love it, since it's my native language. But it can be so complicated and convoluted sometimes. I've read it doesn't sound so good in songs (maybe because we have so many "r" sounds, so it doesn't really flow well in a song).
Open vowels are much easier to sing (when doing scales singers will typically use "AH", or think of the Do Re Mi song.
) and create a more euphonic sound, and most Italian words end in open vowels. There are few Italian words with long strings of consonants. Also, the stress patterns are pretty regular and there's fewer diphthongs, which are harder to sing.
I too really like the English language, and I like French very much as well, but I am passionately in love with standard Italian, if one can say that about a language.
I'm obviously biased, so take the following for what it's worth, but I believe it.
I think Italian is beautiful not just because of the things I mentioned above, or maybe it is the way I described it in terms of singing because it's a language that didn't develop organically; it's a literary language created by poets and novelists like Dante, Petrarca, Bembo, and Manzoni and only adopted broadly after unification in the 1800s.
Bello/bella is one of the most used Italian words. Aesthetics is important, that something be beautiful is important, and so these poets and novelists created a beautiful and elevated language.
Bembo, a poet from Venice and a lover of the Tuscan dialect, in his book "Discussions on the Vernacular" discussed how and why he chose the 14th century language of Petrarca as his model. One the reasons was specifically about sound, and the balance between light and heavy sounds.
In a poem like the following, a very simple one by our Ligurian Nobel Prize Winner for Literature Eugenio Montale, I don't think you need to even understand the words to appreciate its beauty. Here it's interpreted by Luca Zingaretti, whom I think is a great actor.
I went down a million stairs, at least, arm in arm with you.
And now that you are not here, I feel emptiness at each step.
Our long journey was brief, though.
Mine still lasts, but I don't need
any more connections, reservations,
traps, humiliation of those who think reality
is what we are used to see.
I went down a millions of stairs, at least, arm in arm with you,
and not because with four eyes we see better that with two.
With you I went downstairs because I knew, among the two of us,
the only real eyes, although very blurred,
belonged to you.
Or, La Pioggia nel Pineto, Rain in the Pine Woods, by Gabriele D'Annunzio, who whatever his flaws, was a good poet. You could get drunk on the sounds alone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeW692JV8pk&list=PLUWcYR7pq-A0IUoTqAbqAjvXoyiDDwq_T
Be silent. At the edge
of the woods I do not hear
the human words you say;
I hear new words
spoken by droplets and leaves
far away.
Listen. It rains
from the scattered clouds.
It rains on the briny, burned
tamarisk,
it rains on the pine trees
scaly and rough,
it rains on the divine
myrtle,
on the bright ginestra flowers
gathered together,
on the junipers full of
fragrant berries,
it rains on our sylvan
faces,
it rains on our
bare hands
on our light
clothes,
on the fresh thoughts
that our soul, renewed,
liberates,
on the beautiful fable
that beguiled you
yesterday, that beguiles me today,
oh Hermione.
Can you hear? The rain falls
on the solitary
vegetation
with a crackling noise that lasts
and varies in the air
according to the thicker,
less thick foliage.
Listen. With their singing, the cicadas
are answering this weeping,
this southern wind weeping
that does not frighten them,
and nor does the grey sky.
And the pine tree
has a sound, the myrtle
another one, the juniper
yet another, different
instruments
under countless fingers.
And we are immersed
in the sylvan spirit,
living the same
sylvan life;
and your inebriated face
is soft from the rain,
like a leaf,
and your hair is
is fragrant like the light
ginestra flowers,
oh terrestrial creature
called Hermione.
Listen, listen. The song
of the flying cicadas
becomes fainter
and fainter
as the weeping
grows stronger;
but a rougher song
rises from afar,
and flows in
from the humid remote shadow.
Softer and softer
gets weaker, fades away.
One lonely note
still trembles, fades away.
No one can hear the voice of the sea.
Now you can hear the silver rain
pouring in
on the foliage,
rain that purifies,
its roar that varies
according to the thicker,
less thick foliage.
Listen.
The child of the air
is silent; but the child
of the miry swamp, the frog,
far away,
sings in the deepest of shadows
who knows where, who knows where!
And it rains on your lashes,
Hermione.
It rains on your black lashes
as if you were weeping,
weeping from joy; not white
but almost green,
you seem to come out of the bark.
And life is in us fresh
and fragrant,
the heart in our chests is like a peach
untouched
under the eyelids our eyes
are like springs in the grass
and the teeth in our mouths
green almonds.
And we go from thicket to thicket,
at a time together, at a time apart
(the vegetation, thick and vigorous,
entwines our ankles
entangles our knees)
who knows where, who knows where!
And it rains on our sylvan
faces,
it rains on our
bare hands
on our light
clothes,
on the fresh thoughts
that our soul, renewed,
liberates,
on the beautiful fable
that beguiled me
yesterday, that beguiles you today,
oh Hermione.
Be silent. At the edge
of the woods I do not hear
the human words you say;
I hear new words
spoken by droplets and leaves
far away.
Listen. It rains
from the scattered clouds.
It rains on the briny, burned
tamarisk,
it rains on the pine trees
scaly and rough,
it rains on the divine
myrtle,
on the bright ginestra flowers
gathered together,
on the junipers full of
fragrant berries,
it rains on our sylvan
faces,
it rains on our
bare hands
on our light
clothes,
on the fresh thoughts
that our soul, renewed,
liberates,
on the beautiful fable
that beguiled you
yesterday, that beguiles me today,
oh Hermione.