Top Ten Languages That Are Best for Singing Death Metal

Languages have many different sounds, and some of them seem to lend themselves perfectly to death metal!
The Top Ten
1 German

Oh god, this combination has "menacing" written all over it.

Listen to Rammstein for proof of this.

2 Finnish

Finnish sounds exotic and somewhat rough - I think this combination is very good for death metal.
When I heard the first metal song in Finnish I thought this language was beautiful and good for metal. This was the first song:
Teräsbetoni - Voittamaton

I still love this song and even more - their great singer (Jarkko Ahola).

3 Turkish

Turkish would be great, especially for melodic death metal because it's a melodic language but unlike Norwegian, Turkish is not high-pitched. It's melodic but there are enough hard sounds. Also, vowel/vocal harmony is available in this language.
Check out this metal song in Turkish and be convinced (it's metal but not death metal):
Mezarkabul - Bu Alemi Gören Sensin
(Mezarkabul aka Pentagram)

4 Dutch

Dutch is composed of equal portions English and German, so it may work out.
In addition, Dutch has guttural sounds, which is good for death metal.

I visited Holland 2 times and English helped a lot:
Vind de beste parkeerplek = Find the best parking place.

See? - simple, close to EN and German.

5 Danish

Should be at #2 after German, if not #1.
It's from the German language group but with lots of very deep, guttural sounds. Even Danes think their own language sounds like a throat disease (so you have a natural voice distortion).
At an airport a Danish family was sitting next to us for several hours and I thought it was the ugliest version of German. But I think it would be great for death metal.
Side note:
Danes are one of the coolest people in the world.

6 Norwegian

I don't think it's a good idea. Norwegian makes voices sound high-pitched, which is good for black metal shrieks but not for death metal growls (growls are low-pitched).
Also, Norwegian and Swedish are melodic, as if people sing a song.
I think German, Danish, Turkish and Finnish are perfect for death metal. Also Asian languages - Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

No wonder Norway is the black metal capital of the world!

7 Chinese

It's very subjective but Chinese sounds rough to me - as if people are angry all the time. Same for Japanese and Korean.
But this is good for death metal.

8 Japanese
9 Polish
10 English

English to me is so awesome in death metal!

The Contenders
11 Russian

Russian is too soft for death metal - it's one of the softest languages in the world. It doesn't have hard and harsh sounds.
Russians find it difficult to pronounce hard sounds and words like 'urgent', 'bird', 'liar', even 'all' and 'wallpaper'. Their 'L' is very soft and when they say 'all', it's the softest 'L' you've ever heard. You can hear this soft 'L' also in Swedish.

12 Slovak

Close to Czech and Polish. Same problems.

13 Czech

What I wrote about Polish, goes here, too.
Look at those 5 consonants back-to-back in this word - Umbrtka (it's a metal band name).

14 Korean

Remember Psy? Korean can sound quite brutal.

15 Hungarian

Dalriada showed that Hungarian can be a great language for metal! It has to be second to German on this list!

16 Hebrew

Talk about religious controversy.

17 French
18 Tamil
19 Spanish
20 Portuguese
21 Serbian
22 Greek
23 Slovene
24 Swedish

Not among the first choices for death metal because it's melodic and sweet. Probably it may work for melodic death metal. It's a Germanic language but it doesn't have the German harshness. Swedish is like German spoken under water.

It may work for melodic death metal only because it's melodic and sweet. It's a Germanic language but doesn't have the German harshness. Swedish is like German spoken under water.

Take a look at Opeth. Mikael's vocals are in English, but the members are all swedish. Well, unless you count Steven Wilson.

25 Romanian
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