Since its launch in 2005, Google Earth has become a valuable tool for sharing information of global scale. Its accessible platform and wide distribution has led to a wealth of independently created “layers” exploring a huge variety of topics.

The Rosetta archive is by design an explicitly global collection, and by nature relevant to every human occupied corner of the world. With its own global focus, Google Earth makes an ideal showcase for our data. To explore this we’ve created pilot layers that bring out some of the cool ways we see our language data interacting with the Google Earth interface. At the moment the layers bring just snippets of our archive to the surface, and we’re excited to bring the full depth of our materials to bear in future collections.

The files highlight some of the most intriguing aspects of the Rosetta database. You can browse endangered languages of Africa and the Americas, listen to recordings, and explore our 3D representation of linguistic diversity in the urban centers of the U.S. west coast. Check the files out here.

As this is a pilot project, we look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions, and we'd love to hear ideas for future implementations.