Google's Ngram Viewer

[Richard Robin]

Keep in mind that the n-gram viewer only finds words in published books and
scientific journals — so far. That means that a word had to become fairly
well established in the language before it would make it into what is surely
the most conservative of written media. (Certainly periodicals are quicker
on the uptake.) Take the word гей, which I remember hearing in the early
1990s in Leningrad. But the Google n-gram viewer shows it in the borrowed
English meaning only starting in mid-decade of the 2000s. (Previous cites
are for the last name Гей and an animal call.) For гей, that’s a 10-15 year
gap. Натурал is another example. Its Google n-gram career in the meaning of
‘straight’ appears to start in 1995, 10 years after I first heard the term
 — again in Leningrad.

-Rich Robin

On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Vadim Besprozvanny <vbesproz at umich.edu>wrote:

> It would be useful to get a data showing to what extent the books available
> to Google represent the real picture. VB
>
> On Tue, 28 Dec 2010 18:05:52 +0100, "R. M. Cleminson" <rmcleminson at POST.SK
> >
> wrote:
> > Unfortunately the tool does not take account of orthographical reform.
> The
> > boom in срам after 1917 is matched by a corresponding decline in
> > срамъ.
> >
> > ----- Originálna správa -----
> > Odosielateľ: "Anne Fisher" <anne.o.fisher at GMAIL.COM>
> > Komu: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
> > Dátum: sobota, december 18, 2010 11:19:29
> > Predmet: Re: [SEELANGS] Google's Ngram Viewer
> >
> > This is fascinating. Thank you, Steve. Interesting that срам (sram),
> > according to this, seems to have boomed in popularity in the post-1917
> > years... and oddly enough, шлюха (shliukha) - excuse me - seems to
> > have been
> > in 100% of the books around 1995? Any statisticians out there who can
> give
> > the background to these figures (i.e. how much we can rely on the graphs'
> > alluring visuals)?
> >
> > On Sat, Dec 18, 2010 at 6:26 AM, Steve Marder <asured at verizon.net>
> wrote:
> >
> >> A new Google initiative may be of interest to some SEELANGS followers
> and
> >> researchers:
> >>
> >> In theory:
> >>
> >> http://tinyurl.com/2wjc6p7
> >>
> >> http://tinyurl.com/2dod469
> >>
> >>
> >> In practice:
> >>
> >> http://tinyurl.com/2avgdt2
> >>
> >> Slavic is represented by Russian.
> >>
> >>
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-- 
Richard M. Robin
Director Russian Language Program
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052
202-994-7081

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