Lessons on language families are often illustrated with a simple tree diagram that has all the information but lacks imagination. There’s no reason linguistics has to be so visually uninspiring.

900 Years of Tree Diagrams, ... You'd be excused for thinking infographics are a modern invention. We've witnessed an explosion of data visualization in the last half decade, ...

In this graphic by the Tree of Life web project and designer Leonard Eisenberg, we see all 3.5 billion years of life on earth evolving, not through limbs and timelines, but an elegant rainbow swirl.