Sources/methodology:
If I wasn’t sure of the main language I used the CIA World Factbook, usually I took the official language but Africa was tricky so there I tried to take the more popular languages, you can see Cameroon is split 50/50 between French and English and then Ethiopia is split 3 ways between Oromo, Amharic and Somali, two of which took six syllables and the other seven syllables.
I had a few websites which had lists of how to say “I love you.” In some cases I just had to count syllables of the English spellings of these but I tried my best to avoid doing that.Sources:
http://www.loveandromance360.com/iloveyou.htm
http://www.freelang.net/expressions/iloveyou.php
http://www.online-dating-tips-and-reviews.com/I-Love-You.html
http://www.howtosayiloveyou.net/?page_id=96(Source: reddit.com)
Other than that, I used youtube for quite a few to hear how it was said which was a neat experience, seeing people from all over the world say “I love you” in their native tongue, always with a smile on their face.
I did not anticipate a language taking more than 7 syllables which is why my colouring goes weird for 8 and 9 having to use grey and a darker purple.
Nepal is the only country that took 9 syllables, India and Sri Lanka take 8 syllables.
The least amount of syllables to say I love you is 2, most of them are in French: “je t’aime.” Burmese is “chit-tey”; Albanian is “dua” (though I saw some say “te dua”); and I’m pretty sure all the ones in Africa are just French.
When there was a discrepancy between how many syllables it took to say to a woman vs to a man I used the saying to a woman because, well, I’m male.
I probably have a bunch of errors, let me know of any you see or if you have questions on what I used as a source. A lot of times I just had to search Google “say I love you in xyz”.