Music is a universal language, except when it comes to love songs

Regardless of the language used in the survey, people from all cultures were easily able to distinguish dance songs, lullabies and even healing songs. Love songs, however, were surprisingly difficult to recognise. Photo: AFP

Music has always been praised for its transcultural nature, often thought of as a language that frees itself from words and geographical concepts. But a new American study reveals that some types of song are more universally recognisable than others.

To come to this conclusion, researchers from various American universities conducted an experiment with over 5,000 people from 49 countries around the world. While the vast majority of these volunteers came from industrialised countries, around a hundred lived in small, relatively isolated communities.