Monday, January 13, 2014

The Interactive European Etymology Map

I'm a big fan of the always fascinating Etymology Maps thread on Reddit. The thread features word maps, maps that visualize one common word in all the different languages of Europe. For example, 'Christmas' in European languages, 'Meat' in European languages and 'Clock' in European languages.

James Trimble is also a big fan of the Reddit thread and while browsing the maps had a bit of an epiphany. He realized that you could use the Google Translate API with D3 to create an interactive Etymology Map that allows you to visualize any word that you want in all the different European languages.


The result is the European Word Translator. A map that uses the Google Translate API to show you the European translations of any word. Just type a word into the search box and you can view on the D3 map all the translations of the word in all the European countries.

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