Etymology Atlas

Mapping word origins and language evolution across the world's languages.

About

Etymology Atlas is an interactive comparative linguistics explorer that visualizes how vocabulary evolves across languages, families, geographic horizons, and historical epochs.

Features

• Interactive world map with language family color-coding
• Time slider for exploring historical epochs (ancient → modern)
• Click words to view evolution charts, cognate links, and etymology stories
• On-demand Wiktionary enrichment for expanded translation coverage
• Cognate sets linking expert comparative linguistic judgments

Data Sources

• ASJP v21 — phonetic transcriptions and geographic coordinates
• IE-CoR v1.2 — Indo-European expert cognate judgments
• Wiktionary — lexical enrichment (CC BY-SA)
• Wikipedia — interlanguage links for concept coverage

Enrichment

When a word has thin curated coverage, the backend fetches translations on-demand from Wiktionary and Wikipedia, caches results in a separate user database, and never modifies the curated master database. The enrichment targets the major national official languages first via a Google Translate fallback, then fills gaps with crowd-sourced lexical data from open dictionaries.

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