Where do words actually come from?

Hypothesis

Etymology is one of the most delightful rabbit holes on the internet, and one of the worst-presented — dictionaries bury it in abbreviations. An AI that traces any word's evolution through time, rendered as an explorable journey, should turn linguistic archaeology into play.

What we built

Etymon: type any word and trace its evolution — language by language, century by century — presented as a visual path rather than a dictionary entry. Linguistic archaeology powered by AI, on the personal site.

Learnings

• LLMs are strong on well-attested etymologies and confidently wrong on folk ones — the interface must present lineages as a story with sources, not as settled fact.
• Small, delightful single-purpose experiments earn attention that big serious pages don't; several conversations started with "I played with the word thing".

Log

• 2026-07-01 — Polish pass on the journey visualisation.
• 2026-06-15 — First version live.