Don't Worry, Be Happy and Learn Spanish, the Happiest Language on Earth

A team of scientists from the University of Vermont examined music, movies, websites, social media, books and news sources globally and compiled billions of words.  They then were able to identify the 10,000 most commonly used words in each of the world's more popular languages, namely, Chinese, Spanish, English, Russian, Korean, Arabic, German, French, Brazilian Portuguese, and Indonesian.  After paying native speakers to rate the "happiness" of each world using a semi-complex smiley face scale and nine point system, they had 5 million individual human scores.  To give an example, an average of the scores revealed in English a 1.3 "happiness" rating for the word terrorist, 3.06 for greed, 4.98 for the, 7.44 for food and 8.50 for laughter.

Upon averaging the score of all the words, which language had the overall highest "happiness" rating?  

Spanish.

The lowest?  Chinese.

In case you were wondering, English didn't fare too badly on the list, coming in at third behind Brazilian Portuguese.

Why might Spanish be the happiest language on Earth?

After professionally studying the complexities of Spanish and living in a Spanish-speaking country, both for over 10 years, I'd like to offer an opinion.

Evidence strongly suggests that, in general, culture and language are almost inseparable, and I have seen with my own eyes a unique positivity in many aspects of multiple "Hispanic" cultures—New York Spanish, Dominican, Guatemalan, Mexican, Bolivian, Argentinian and more.

I don't need statistics to tell me that Hispanic families generally are more close-knit.  Anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't been immersed in the culture enough.  Lunch is sacred.  They eat together, travel in a long line of cars together (perhaps each one beyond the recommended capacity), and they live together.  It's not uncommon to see different immediate families of multiple generations living together in the same home.  As crazy as it may sound, if a young adult son or daughter gets married, each set of parents would love for the new couple to live with them.  And it probably would be viewed as nearly an act of treason to stick one's aging parents in a nursing home instead of letting them live with you, depending on the circumstances of course.  Hispanic families aren't perfect (machismo is a real thing), but boy do they stick together, and if you have the opportunity to even spectate at a Hispanic family event, it just exudes positivity.

image by freepik

They dance a LOT.  They eat VERY well.  They have fun and share.  I remember shortly after I got married, my wife and I went to a social gathering of a large group of mostly non-Hispanic friends.  There were a lot of board games and a lot of talking.  After a few hours, my wife (who grew up in a Hispanic culture) asked me, "So are we really just going to play board games the whole night?"  She was genuinely shocked there was no dancing.  A typical Hispanic party might include trays and trays of chicken, rice, beans, beef, plantains, tacos, enchiladas, juice, drinks, cakes and more.  It's plentiful and delicious, and everybody contributes and shares with one another.  And everybody, and I mean everybody, dances. Kids who just learned to walk, Grandmas and Grandpas on their last leg—everybody has real fun dancing Salsa, Bachata, Merengue and Kumbia for hours.  The whole thing just exudes positivity.

This positive culture most certainly carries over into speech and language.

In many places, it is considered extremely rude to not greet a passerby or to attempt to begin even an urgent conversation with a friend without first greeting him.

Have you ever looked up the definition of sarcasm? Oxford Language defines it as the use of irony to mock or convey contempt.  Dictionary.com says it is harsh, cutting, or bitter derision, often using irony to point out the deficiencies or failings of someone or something.

Not too positive to say the least.

Would it surprise you to know that in many Hispanic cultures cruel sarcasm is hardly used, if ever.  Mocking, ironic speech is just not super common and if you did attempt to really hurt someone with it, many wouldn't be quick to understand because they're just not used to someone being such a pompous loser.

What is perhaps most intriguing (at least for me as a lover of Spanish as a language) is the fact that the positivity of speech in Spanish appears to actually carry over grammatically.

Consider 3 grammatical aspects of Spanish: SER vs ESTAR, Los Diminutivos and The Subjunctive Tense.

SER vs ESTAR

Learning the difference between ser and estar is one of the more annoying things for an American learning Spanish.  Whereas in English there is only one way to say to be, I am, He is, We are and They are, in Spanish there are always two different ways, ser and its conjugations or estar and its conjugations.  Ser is used for more deeply rooted physical or personality traits that are tied to one's reputation or to how others would identify him as a person.  Estar is just not that deep.  For example, you would say Quiero ser alto (I want to be tall), because tall is generally used as a trait connected with one's reputation or identification as a person.  On the other hand, you would say Quiero estar listo (I want to be ready), because ready is not generally tied to one's reputation or identification as a person.

Annoying to learn—I know.

But it provides an opportunity to immediately make a negative thought more positive without the need of any additional vocabulary.

If someone says to you in English, "You are fat," that's pretty rough - no way around it.  In Spanish that would be comparable to someone saying, "Eres gordo".  The use of Eres here, a conjugation of ser, would mean that being fat is your reputation and identification as a person.  Ouch.

However in Spanish someone has the option of saying, "Estás gordo," which has the idea of temporarily looking fat at the moment, but that's not who you are—you can change quickly.

A bit more positivity built right into the grammar.

Los Diminutivos

In Spanish, you have the option of adding some form of "ito" to almost anything.  Literally, the meaning is to make something smaller, but it immediately sounds extra positive.  Take the above example.

Estás gordito makes the 'you are fat' idea sound even nicer, perhaps something comparable to "You are a bit chubby," all just by adding three letters.

Mi amor means my love.  Mi amorcito, literally my little love, is just an extra level of niceness that's hard to explain in English.

If there is just a week left before summer vacation and you want to encourage your child to not give up working hard during that last week of school, you could say something like,  "Just one more week!".  In Spanish, it would be, "Solo una semana más".  But you also have the option of saying, "Solo una semanita más," and just those three letters make it sound as if the period of time were even shorter, even if logically it is not.

More grammatical positivity.

The Subjunctive Tense

The Subjunctive Tense is nearly nonexistent in modern English.  It is a HUGE grammatical part of Spanish and perhaps the single hardest thing for Americans to learn.  It is such a big deal that it is often called the Subjunctive Mood, even beyond a normal tense.  A major principle when deciding if it is necessary to use this tense is to perceive if someone essentially wants or doesn't want someone else to do or not do something.  Consider the following sentences:

I don't want you to do that.  I prefer that you don't do that.  I hope that you don't do that.  I'm happy that you don't do that.  It's good that you don't do that.  It's normal that you don't do that.  I'm surprised that you don't do that.

It may not be easy to see it for some of these, but all of these sentences are essentially nicer, less direct ways of telling someone you don't want them to do something.  Imagine saying "It's normal that you don't do that" with a slightly confident, approving tone.  And imagine saying "I'm surprised that you don't do that" with a slightly happy tone.  They are just "euphemisms" for directly saying "I don't want you to do that."

This less direct, nicer way of expressing one's wishes or opinion is the "soul" of the subjunctive tense in Spanish, one of its major reasons for existing, in my opinion.  Someone who learned Spanish from birth might not realize it, but someone who learns it later very well grammatically and conversationally tends to adopt a new way of thinking in terms of expressing wishes and opinions in less biting ways.

Obviously all those nicer sentences exist in English as well, but the point is this:

There is a grammatical tense in Spanish that is so overwhelming, so unavoidable that in reality it is a mood which spans multiple tenses.  To master it is not for the lazy of mind, as it requires you to slowly submit to a new thought pattern.  It is called the Subjunctive Tense, and its near singular focus is to express otherwise blunt thoughts more nicely.

It's hard work.  But it's all about positivity.

Bobby McFerrin's famous feel good song, Don't Worry Be Happy, doesn't lift our spirits by providing a long list of logical reasons why we should be happy.  Rather, it does just the opposite.  It whispers ever so slightly, when you most yearn to hear it, 'You don't need a reason to be happy.  Just be happy, and you'll feel better'.  Plus the catchy tune and the Jamaican beach vibes don't hurt.

By no means may I conclude that the happy vibes of Hispanic culture be defined by GRAMMAR concepts like the Subjunctive Tense or even by a scientific study of a bunch of words commonly used on Twitter.

While these logical reasons are most certainly intriguing and worthy of meaningful rumination, at the end of the day, enchiladas are great, family is family and Salsa is just fun (like seriously, learn it).

And while you're at it, don't think about it too much: Don't worry, be happy and learn Spanish as well, the "undisputed" happiest language on Earth.

After all, in a USA Today interview Bobby McFerrin reportedly admitted about Don't Worry Be Happy: "I hate to go so far as to say it's Jamaican. It was heavily influenced by Juan's Mexican Restaurant, which was just around the corner from the studio."