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## United States Transliteration Project (2014)

by United States Transliteration Project

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The US Transliteration Project utilizes Google Translate, Google Earth, and Google NGRAM as a basis for reworking the motto's and seals of the fifty states. Each motto is sequentially translated through the five most prevalent spoken languages in a given state and each seal is created from a landscape satellite image of the area where Google Earth dropped the pin for that state. Google NGRAM viewer is used to gauge the usage and relative cultural popularity of the motto over time.

Tags: digital art google NGRAM nycpofest revised united state seals translate transliteration

###### Full Description

Each motto is sequentially translated through the five most prevalent spoken languages in a given state. For example, Virginia's state motto is 'Thus always to tyrants'. I plugged this into Google Translate and went from English to Spanish, then from Spanish to Korean then into Vietnamese, then Chinese, then Afrikaans and finally back into English where the motto morphed into - 'Therefore it is always a tyrant'.

Each seal is created from a landscape satellite image of the area where Google Earth dropped the pin for that state. I selected the specific images as representative snapshots of a given state or motto, or some combination, based on my own impressions and aesthetics.

As a footnote, a chart is included for each state that tracks the usage over the last 200 years of each state motto as determined and generated by Google NGRAM viewer, which is a phrase usage graphing tool that charts the yearly count of selected ngrams (letter combinations) or words and phrases, as found in over 5.2 million books digitized by Google.

###### Work metadata

- Year Created: 2014
- Submitted to ArtBase: Monday Jul 14th, 2014
- Original Url: http://www.TransliterationProject.com/
- Work Credits:
  - Margaret Withers, primary creator

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###### Artist Statement

Translation is a form of betrayal: it is a traduction, a reconstitution made of sacrifice and revision. —William Gass

This project utilizes Google Translate, Google Earth, and Google NGRAM as a basis for reworking the mottos and seals of the fifty states.

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