word tree

Languages are taught as separate systems. They are not. Beneath the surface, nearly half the world's tongues descend from a single reconstructed ancestor — and even unrelated families share sounds for the most fundamental human concepts: mother, water, fire. Word Tree is a visual atlas of this kinship, built around the descent and cousinhood of one word at a time.

plate i the constellation one word spoken in 27 languages, arranged by family. look outward → plate ii the descent one word traced backward through six thousand years. look backward →