SPANISH IS THE HAPPIEST
LANGUAGE
Are you in a foul mood? It might be time to learn Spanish.
Feeling down lately? Perhaps it’s time to consider learning Spanish. According to a recent study by the National Academy of Sciences, Spanish was the happiest. Out of all those tested. This study confirms the Pollyanna hypothesis, which suggests that humans have a natural bias towards positivity. Experts from the University of Vermont and the MITRE Corporation analyzed vast amounts of text from various sources, including Twitter, and discovered that this tendency towards positivity is especially true in the Spanish language.Â
After evaluating 100,000 words from 10 different languages in terms of origin and culture: English, Mexican Spanish, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean,Chinese (simplified), Russian, Indonesian, and Arabic, a team of scientists found that there was a general tendency towards positivity in the most commonly used words in each language. To further evaluate this trend, native speakers were asked to score each word on a scale of 1 to 9 based on the level of optimism it conveyed. The results showed that Spanish-language web pages, Spanish-language Google Books, and Spanish-language Twitter had the highest rates of positive words, followed closely by Portuguese-language web pages and Portuguese-language Twitter.
On the other hand, English song lyrics, Korean movie subtitles, and Chinese Google Books had the lowest rates of positive words. It’s interesting to note that this positive bias was present in all of the word corpora analyzed, regardless of language or origin. However, the degree of positivity varied significantly between languages and platforms. These findings could have important implications for how we understand and communicate across different cultures and languages.
 As part of a bigger project, a study has been conducted to create a unique happiness meter known as a hedonometer. This tool can monitor the ‘happiness signals’ in English-language tweets almost in real-time, allowing users to see how these signals differ daily, weekly, and monthly. The study results reveal that Vermont in the US has the highest happiness signal, while Louisiana has the lowest. Although the hedonometer can only track English-language tweets, the next objective is to expand its use to other languages and demographic groups.
So, if you’re in a bad mood, sad, or want to feel happier why not give it a try and see if learning Spanish can boost your mood?
