They say there is a language for every occasion. There is a joke that says if you want to talk about war, speak in German; for a business conversation, use English; French is the sound of love, and if you want to talk to God, you must do it in Spanish. This joke has its origins in the words of Roman Emperor Charles V, “I speak several languages but use only Spanish to talk to God.”

Phonetically speaking, Romance languages are indeed romantic and just beautiful.

Wikipedia defines Romance languages as the modern languages that began evolving from vulgar Latin between the 6th and 9th centuries and that form a branch of the Italic languages within the Indo-European language family.

Today, around 800 million people are native speakers worldwide. Additionally, the major Romance languages (also called Romanic or Neo-Latin languages) have many non-native speakers and are in widespread use as lingua francas, which are languages or dialects used to communicate people of different native languages.

The five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of native speakers are:

• Spanish (470 million)
• Portuguese (250 million)
• French (150 million)
• Italian (85 million)
• Romanian (25 million)

Some linguists argue that Romance languages sound pretty to English speakers because they are more familiar with those sounds, rather than for instance the Chinese or Japanese tones. But Dr. Patti Adank, who teaches speech, hearing and phonetic sciences at University College London, says the opposite. He explains that Italian is attractive to the ear because of its own melody, and provides further detail - Italian benefits from a very hugh number of words that end in vowels, and few words with many consonants in a row, creating an open sound that it perfect for singing.

Italian is a passionate tongue with such a seductive power that people cry through hours-long operas. This language was created by poets who shaped their creative style in different regional dialects over centuries – ultimately, it was Tuscan that prevailed.

French is another lovely language, according to many people in the world. The Russian writers in the end of 18 century wrote in French. The prestige, the nobility is an asset that speak about history with a little poetry inside. This is the tongue that give its speakers "panache" and "je ne sais quoi."

And Spanish, "when spoken correctly, no matter the accent, is by far the most beautiful, most romantic language... It has such a melodic tone that even an insult can sound romantic," quips a contributor to the Top Tens website. Indeed Spanish has a well-established repuation for being a language which conjures up romance and beauty. But just why is this the case? Perhaps it is because of the soft consonants, longer vowels and blurring of beginnings and ends of words which makes Spanish easy to rhyme and conducive to music and poetry.