Human emotions were found to be derived from four words; four words reveal the underlying human emotions.

【People derive every emotion from just four words.】
https://nazology.net/archives/144252

・Toru Ikeguchi and his research team at the Tokyo University of Science focused on the colexification of emotion-related language and attempted to identify the words that are central to human emotional expressions.

・As a result of their analysis, they found that “GOOD,” “BAD,” “LOVE,” and “WANT” function as the central hub of a complex network of emotional expressions.

・Darwin, the famous evolutionary theorist, observed the emotional expressions of an orangutan and his son and identified seven basic human emotions: sadness, happiness, anger, contempt, fear, and surprise.

・In the 1970s, Paul Ekman argued that anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise were universal basic human emotions because they could be read across cultures (later, shame, embarrassment, and pride were added to these emotions). (Later, to these emotions were added shame, embarrassment, pride, etc.)

The above is a quote from the article

Four Words to Understand the Root of Emotions

As time goes by, words keep changing and new words keep being created.

Just as there are fashionable words, new words (vocabulary) are being created at an ever-increasing rate.

However, words of “adjectives,” which mainly express people’s emotions and feelings, rarely increase with the times.

Adjectives, in that sense, are fundamental words.

In this study,

The four central words in human emotional expression, “GOOD,” “BAD,” “LOVE,” and “WANT,” were discovered in this study,

GOOD (adjective)
BAD (adjective)
LOVE (an adjective if interpreted as “lovely”)
WANT (a verb????)

I personally was surprised to see “WANT” (want), a verb, not an adjective, in one of the four. (I know it sounds like an adjective because the word “want” ends in “i”, lol)

I believe it is very important to pay attention to adjectives in a person’s conversation (language) and in one’s own conversation (mental conversation, language of the heart). This is because if we read the adjectives, we can see the person’s or our emotions, feelings, and psychological state. This may be, in a way, a counseling way of looking at it.

And now, because four root words have been discovered,

Do you (do you) feel “GOOD” about the person, the thing, or the event?

GOOD (good) or BAD (bad)
BAD (bad) or not (good)?
Do you feel “LOVE” or not?
Whether you feel “WANT” or not

If we read the feelings from these four points, we may be able to find something fundamental.

Still, from an adjectival perspective, it is really surprising that “WANT” is at the root.

But then again, we humans always live with desires, such as the three major wants, so perhaps it is not surprising when you think about it that way.

Anyway,

If we look at it from the perspective of the four root words, we may find something fundamental.

See you then

Are these four words common to Japanese, English, or any other language?