LANGUAGE PURITY

A data visualization tool created to represent the etymology of words graphically

Language Purity is a data visualization tool created to represent the etymology of words graphicly. It is designed to address a growing "language purity" movement in the United States, where supporters seek to remove the many loan words and grammatical exceptions English has accommodated. This movement does not acknowledge the cooperative nature of language development or the benefits of diversity and inclusivity. This project aims to demonstrate the dynamic nature of language and appreciate the natural process of human communication.

CONCEPT

To combine some of the key ways in which current visuals convay the complexities of language

The idea was that if these visualizations could adjust to the language used by the viewer, I could convey the complexities and interconnectedness of language without requiring knowledge of linguistics.

MIDTERM PROGRESS

Created the programming backbone for this project to function

I was able to set up a pretty robust program to search a body of text for etymology. I was using BeautifulSoup to parse through the Wictionary page and search for the etymology_header, but this process is very slow. Above are some simple pie chart examples to visualize this data as a proof of concept.

FINAL PROGRESS

Began creating more meaningful ways to visualize etymology + performance improvements

Stability + Performance were the two big goals for my Final. This meant shifting from a basic HTML parser to something that could respond more quickly. I chose to utilize the wikitionaryparser, which parses articles' content in an easy-to-use JSON format. While this was enough of a performance boost for creating charts, it was not enough for the live input/response text box. For this, I also had to implement a cache that would remember words as you type and not require the internet.

UPDATED TIMELINE

Week 11: Final decisions regarding display methods (Projector, Terminal + Monitor, SMS)

Week 12-14: Construct GUI / Data Visuals

Create an interface for users to interact with the data + combine all of the visuals into one program
Primarily focused on the atheistic design and legibility

Week 15 (Midterm): Visuals should come together in a usable way and begin user testing.

Week 16-17: User testing and collecting feedback / Debugging

Are the visuals meaningful / easy to understand
Is the interface easy to use / stable

Week 18: Implementing changes and minor tweaks

Week 19 (Final): Present the final installation

Week 20: Install in gallery