THE Germans are grumpy and lacking in humour because speaking their language makes them that way, according to a leading psychologist. 
Professor David Myers says that the muscle movement required to speak the rather harsh- sounding words causes the face to frown and look glum. 
And he believes continuous frowning in the end leads people to become unhappy. 
In particular, Professor Myers identifies the umlaut accent on German vowels, which cause the mouth to turn down. In contrast, English sounds like “e” and “ah” are far more cheerful and put people in better moods. 
Speaking at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Professor Myers, from Hope College, Michigan, said: 
“Behaviour and facial expressions have a great effect on the emotions of an individual. 
“Research has shown the facial expression of a person can affect how funny they will find things like cartoons. 
“Even when speaking , movements of the muscles in the face can change a person’s mood - it is delightfully subtle. Saying “e” and “ah” activates the smiling muscles in the face and puts people in a better mood than saying the German "ü". 
“This activates muscles associated with negative emotions and this can make a significant difference in the mood of a person. This could be a good reason why German people have got a reputation for being humourless and grumpy.” 
Professor Myers, who has just finished a sabbatical at St Andrews University, has carried out extensive research on positive psychology. 
It’s just that "über" can’t make you smile 
Using electrodes to manipulate facial muscles into different expressions, he found people who frown have a lowered sense of humour. German words like über and fünf triggered unhappy emotions while English words like bee and car made people smile. 
Professor Myers added that negative emotions were bad for the health and made people who showed them difficult to agree with. 
He added: “By manipulating the position of a person’s mouth into a smiling position they will find cartoons funnier than someone whose mouth is in a frowning position. 
“Smiling produces positive emotions like happiness and explains why unhappy people are less likely to be amused by jokes. Happier people are much more tolerant and less abusive than those who are unhappy. They are also more willing to help those in need. 
“Emotions like anger and depression are known to be toxic and make people extremely unhealthy.” 
Dr Robin Lickley, from the linguistics department at Edinburgh University, said yesterday: “It certainly makes sense that some vowels which use the same muscles as a smile in pronunciation could make people happier. 
 “The stretching of the lips and the cheeks when forming the English ‘e’ are also used in smiling . With ‘ah’ it is more of a laughing expression with the mouth open. 
“The pronunciation of vowels with an umlaut requires the tongue to be at the back of the mouth with the lips more rounded like an ‘oo’ sound. This is the complete opposite of ‘e’ and more associated with serious or sad expressions.” 
Yesterday a spokesman for the German Embassy said: “We can give no comment on this as it is too scientific”. (684 words)
 

Annotations:
research: 'Forschung'  -  down in the mouth: depressed  -  grumpy: angry, ill-tempered  -  to lack in (humour): to be without (humour)  -  facial expression: Gesichts-(ausdruck)  -  to affect: (here) to influence  - mood: state of mind  -  subtle: slight, little  -  sabbatical: leave with pay granted every seven years to a university professor for travel or research  -  to frown: to wrinkle one's brow when in displeasure or anger  -  to trigger: to initiate, to start  -  a cartoon: a caricature  - to abuse: to use negative words in an aggressive way  - toxic:  with poison  -  cheek:  Wange  - embassy:  ambassador's offices in a foreign country