Some good words here about Asya Pereltsvaig’s explorations in word geography, from the etymology section of her Languages of the World site, which has some cool maps. In no particular order (some postings have come by more than once, in different versions):
The Geography of ‘Book’ (link)
The Geography of the “Onion” Vocabulary (link)
What will you have: tea or chai? (link)
Say “Cheese”! (link)
The Geography of “Cucumber” (link)
The ‘cheese’ map:
On the site:
This site is a discussion forum dedicated by Asya Pereltsvaig to exploring the rich diversity of human languages and the peoples who speak them.
… What do all human languages have in common and in what ways are they different? How can language be used to trace different peoples and their past? How do languages change in time and how do they influence each other? How does language make us humans what we are? How do we learn language and how do we navigate our multilingual world?
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