It just struck me that the Danish word for happiness (glæde) is both a noun and a verb.
So in Danish you can experience happiness (føle glæde) but you can also “happy someone else” (glæde en anden).
As in: “I think this will happy my spouse” (det vil glæde min partner) or “small acts can happy others” (små ting kan glæde andre).
I don’t want to read too much into that linguistic quirk, but it is interesting because it goes to the heart of what happiness is – i.e. very much something we do for each other.
Can you think of another language that has this feature?
Also, the same word is also used to say that you are looking forward to something. “Jeg glæder mig til jul” literally translates “I happy myself about Christmas” and means “I’m looking forward to Christmas.”
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