At times, it can feel like the world is more divided than it is united. It is all too easy to be separated by miles, ideas, or by languages. However, recent studies into the most popular translated word choices across the world remind us of our commonality.
A collaboration between Google News Lab and Visual Cinnamon, called Beautiful in English, has analysed Google Translate data from 2012 to 2016. It collected all the single word translations of nouns and adjectives into English before assessing them to discover 10 of the most popular languages on Google. In the course of finding these languages, the collaboration discovered the most common words translated into English across the world – with surprisingly heartwarming results.
While some of the most popular words are somewhat random, others are words of admiration. The most popular Dutch translation was 'collega', meaning 'colleague' in English. The words 'good' and 'beautiful' proved the most popular overall. Beautiful is expressed differently across the world, from 'bonito' in Spanish, to 'piękny' in Polish, but its meaning stays the same.
Certain translations were commonplace and expected, such as 'hello', 'thank you' and 'goodbye'. By focusing on the nouns and adjectives instead of these common words and phrases, though, the translation results demonstrate how different non-native English speakers use language to express themselves in their everyday lives.
Overall, six of the top 10 languages have a remarkably positive focus, with most frequently translated words including 'love', 'great' and 'happy'.
Furthermore, these trends have been analysed to chart the popularity of words over time, as well as related word queries. In 2013, the word 'beautiful', or 'schön', grew in popularity around the time Lana Del Rey released her song Young and Beautiful. While the song can't be credited for every query for translations of beauty at this time, it makes for an interesting example of how popular culture may affect our word choices.
When focusing on the 10 most translated words per language, the analysis revealed further distinctions between countries. Perhaps more important - and overwhelming than these differences - are the similarities this analysis uncovered.
The top four words in Spanish were similar to both Portuguese and Italian. Russian proved more similar in word choice to Polish. Japanese is the only language that proved dissimilar to all others; no word from the Japanese top 10 is even present in the overall top 10. The interconnected web of languages demonstrates that, in spite of our differences, our most important choices of expression reflect those of positivity.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
