It really bugs me that people consider some languages ugly or harsh. It seems like an extension of xenophobia and racism.
It seems perfectly plausible to me that, just as there are unpleasant non-linguistic sounds, there could be languages that produce a greater number of unpleasant sounds in typical speech, to a person from any cultural background. Think: nails on a chalkboard. (I'm tempted to call these "objectively ugly" sounds, but of course having a social cause does not make something subjective.)
Of course, this is not to say that racism, or xenophobia are never the causes of these judgments. And, more subtly, some of our views about what sounds are 'ugly' may also be socially constructed, at least in part. And these views could relate to longstanding racial biases, among other factors.
tl;dr: Probably some of these judgments are facially racist, and others are caused by genuine assessments of the ugliness of sounds, but those judgments themselves may have social causes that include racist and xenophobic dynamics. But others still may well relate to perceptions that are hardwired, and not socially constructed.
All this complexity makes me hesitate before signing on to your view, though I do sometimes lean in that direction.
A good example of nicely spoken German is "Die Bombe die Nicht Tickt" (a reading of a short story by a German band whose name eludes me). Also the main character in Goodbye Lenin.
If native speakers don't believe their own languages to be ugly, then it certainly seems like a xenophobic belief.
(By the way: yes, I actually have heard people say that they wished that they spoke another language because it sounds nicer than theirs. English speakers say this about French all the time -- though, as always, it's hard to say whether this is because French "really is" [whatever that means] prettier sounding, or due to cultural factors. I've also heard a native speaker of Korean say she wished she was an English speaker instead, because English is nicer sounding. This is just another anecdote, though. Who knows a person's real reason for saying such a thing. That's why this whole paragraph is, I now realize, in parentheses.)
In the original case of the orcs' Black Speech in Tolkein, they were a race incapable of saying anything pretty because of their language. These are the broad fantastical racism undertones that really bug me about Tolkein's mythology, and they mirror a real undercurrent in people's modes of thought.
Again, I cannot see how this is a difficult position to accept: some sounds sound worse than others. Spoken languages are made up of sounds. So why is it so hard to accept that some languages contain more pleasing sounds than others. Of course, as I've already agreed, there can be a lot more at work than this, including racism. But as a general proposition, I don't see how you can hold that judgments about what languages are ugly are fundamentally racist. I also don't see how you've addressed the issue that the categories of people that we regard as speaking an ugly language only weakly correlate (if at all -- obviously this is not a mathematical exercise so I cannot be too precise here, unfortunately) with groups to which we have broad racial biases.
I suppose I can't rule out that there are people out there in the U.S. or western Europe who would tell you, as a general proposition, that African and Middle Eastern languages are ugly. If so, those people are, I agree, letting their racial biases drive their aesthetic judgments about the qualities of language. But I don't think this is the typical case.
French and Italian [0] are considered romance languages, because among other things they sound pretty. Russian [1] (and I suppose most Slavic languages) just don't generally sound pretty. For what its worth, I speak Russian; not terribly well, but I speak it. Russian really isn't a language that sounds "pretty" or "silky", or whichever adjective you'd prefer.
The reason I decided to respond to you comment was a little more abstract than that though. People liking or disliking things about other kinds of people isn't racist. Some people just don't like things. I don't like black licorice (no idea who invented it, but I don't like it). I don't particularly care for traditional German food (I'll eat it, its just not my go to for food), and I don't think I'd ever wear a kilt to a wedding (I'm mostly Irish, then Italian, then Native American).
I don't think those things make me racist or xenophobic. At least, I don't think less of anyone who prefers any of those things. I just don't like them for me.
I think if we start claiming that not liking something like a language is racist, we're on a slippery slope indeed. For example, I don't like the color red. I don't like traditional Mexican music. Do either one of those things make me racist?
I'm not trying to attack by any means, I'm sincerely curious.
[0] http://www.orbilat.com/General_Survey/List_of_Romance_Langua...
[1] http://www.russiaslam.com/2012/stories/the-russian-language-...
No, they (along with Spanish and others) are considered "romance languages" because they descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of the common Romans of the late Imperial period. [0]
Has nothing to do with sounding pretty.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages#Origins and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages#Name
Not relevant to your point, but just to clarify a common misconception: Romance languages are languages derived from Latin. The name means "language of the Romans", not "language of the amorous".
But disliking a language is disliking something very entrenched within an ethnicity. I'm sure that there are Mexicans who dislike some of our traditional music, but how many Mexicans think that Spanish is ugly and are embarrassed to speak it? How many Germans think the same about German?
If indeed native speakers don't consider their own language ugly, then foreigners who think that seem to be exhibiting a kind of xenophobia.
What does that have to do with anything? Nobody's indicting anyone for speaking a language. The question here is just whether some languages are generally more mellifluous.
> If indeed native speakers don't consider their own language ugly, then foreigners who think that seem to be exhibiting a kind of xenophobia.
Maybe, but it seems more likely to me that native speakers are just deaf to how their own language sounds to other people — similar to how most people don't think they have an accent, and are surprised what their voice sounds like recorded because they're used to hearing it rumble from within.
Going back to language, if you're saying my language is ugly because of how it sounds to you, all I hear is that you don't know anything about it and you're referring to something unknown as ugly. It just seems like ignorance.
As to your second point, being unaware of one's accent and being unaware of one's own timbre are completely different things.