About
A dictionary of the whole earth, in images.
Lexis started with a simple question: what does a word look like in a language you don't speak?
Who
Lexis is made in the Netherlands by [name]. Lexis is becoming a non-profit foundation [being set up].
Why a foundation
A dictionary of the world shouldn't belong to a company. A foundation can't be sold, doesn't profit from your data, and lasts as long as the work is needed. The images and words belong to the people who made them; the foundation looks after them.
Inspiration
PanLex
The world's largest free translation dictionary, a project of the Long Now Foundation.
Whole Earth Catalog
Stewart Brand's 1968 catalogue: "access to tools", with the whole earth on its cover.
John Berger
Ways of Seeing (1972): looking is never neutral.
The Long Now Foundation
Thinking in ten thousand years. Languages are the longest memory we have.
Press
Lexis in short: a free app where people give words an image. Every image is tied to a meaning, so it speaks thousands of languages at once. Built on PanLex, with no ads, no likes and no AI images.
Sources: PanLex Lite (June 2024), Glottolog. See sources and licences.
Images, the logo and interviews: press@lexis.earth.