WordiyoAbout Wordiyo
A bilingual etymology atlas powered by Grimm's Law, mapping how English words grow from shared roots.
Wordiyo (/wɜːr.ˈdiː.jəʊ/) is a bilingual etymology atlas that maps how thousands of English words grow from shared Latin, Greek, and Indo-European roots — understanding over memorization.
The current dataset covers 605 roots, 18125 words, and 163 affixes — all cross-referenced and color-coded so you can see the connections at a glance.
Grimm's Law — Six Sound-Shift Patterns
These six categories of phonetic correspondence explain how a single root surfaces in many different English words.
Vowel Interchange
The five vowels (a-e-i-o-u) regularly swap between related forms while preserving the root meaning.
sit / seat / set
Consonant Voice Alternation
Consonants shift along predictable voicing pairs: b/p/f/v, d/t/s/z, g/k/c/q/h/j.
describe → description (b↔p)
Nasal Substitution
Nasal sounds m and n substitute for each other at morpheme boundaries — similar to 通假字 in classical Chinese.
in- + possible → impossible (n→m)
Liquid Interchange
The liquids l, m, n, and r alternate freely among related words.
flagrant / fragrant (l↔r)
H Dropping
An initial h can appear or vanish without changing a word's etymological family.
able / habile
Letter Rearrangement
Metathesis: letters within a root swap positions across cognate forms.
tax / tac / tag
Learning Approach
A method designed around how memory actually works — spaced, multisensory, and bite-sized.
Multi-round repetition
三轮学习
First pass for familiarity, second for recognition, third for production. Each round deepens the neural pathway.
Multisensory engagement
视/听/主动回忆
Combine visual morpheme maps, audio pronunciation, and active recall quizzes to encode through multiple channels.
Fragmented time, long-term gain
碎片化时间
Short, focused sessions spread across days outperform marathon study. Five minutes now beats an hour later.
Comprehensive root map
605 roots, each linked to its derived words, variant spellings, and semantic domains — a living map of English morphology.
Transparent decomposition
Every word is split into color-coded morphemes (prefix, root, suffix) so the internal structure is immediately visible.
Bilingual by design
All content is natively bilingual (English + Chinese). Sound-shift patterns are explained with 通假字 analogies familiar to Chinese speakers.
“Among thousands of people, you meet those you are meant to meet. Among thousands of years, in the boundless wilderness of time, you happen to catch up with them — neither a step too early, nor a step too late.”