A micro-survey of 320 linguists found that l’italiano tops their list for the most romantic tongue.

In the inevitable battle with French, Latin lovers from across the Alps came out slightly ahead, with Italian winning 45% to 40%.

Spanish, surprisingly, came out as the ratty pajamas and curlers of languages with its romantic quotient stalled at just 6%, tied with English. Portuguese came in last of the top five with 3%.

Sure, a sample size of 320 people isn’t exactly representative, but the idea that these are specialists — from the 2,600 translators and interpreters at Today Translations in London — makes it more interesting.

It’s one thing to think how romantic “l’amore” sounds is in Italian without speaking it, but the respondents are folks who know at least two languages and can, presumably, imagine trysts in them as well.

The top six romantic words in any language, trite as all get out, were also dominated by Dante’s language. Hit the jump for the list. Continue reading →