# Using Google ngrams for theological research



## Ask Mr. Religion (Apr 15, 2013)

At Google Ngram Viewer one can enter search terms and years to search for the occurrence of various words and see a nice graph. Below the graph appear links to various categories of years where the terms appear in Google's collection of digitized books.

For example:

Google Ngram Viewer

Might be a useful research tool for determining trending of various terms, topics, etc.

From what I can tell the searches go only as far back as 1500 AD. For the really serious researcher, you can download data sets and run your own complex queries.
See also the summary info about ngrams here: Google Ngram Viewer

AMR


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## DMcFadden (Apr 15, 2013)

Sweet! Thanks.


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## KMK (Apr 15, 2013)

Check out my search for the word 'propitiation': Google Ngram Viewer

It reached its peak in 1678


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## Goodcheer68 (Apr 15, 2013)

oops double post look below...


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## Goodcheer68 (Apr 15, 2013)

I put in sin and self. The period between 1640 and 1720 the word self was at its highest peak and then declined rapidly. But around 1840 the use of sin started declining while the use of the word self began to increase once again. 

Google Ngram Viewer


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Apr 15, 2013)

KMK said:


> Check out my search for the word 'propitiation': Google Ngram Viewer
> 
> It reached its peak in 1678



That was "way kewl".


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## VictorBravo (Apr 15, 2013)

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> That was "way kewl".



I think "theoloogical research" is coool tooo.


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Apr 15, 2013)

VictorBravo said:


> I think "theoloogical research" is coool tooo


I hate that when that happens. Maybe a mod will have pity on me. Know anyone?


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## VictorBravo (Apr 16, 2013)

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> Maybe a mod will have pity on me.



OK, fixed it.

But now my smart comment looks dumb....


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## Semper Fidelis (Apr 16, 2013)

Super Cool!


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## Tim (Apr 16, 2013)

Try: "government"

government

It peaks in the 1640s, the 1770s, and the 1960s.


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## Tim (Apr 16, 2013)

"God" peaks in the 1640s and 1710s:

God

Can someone suggest what was happening in the 1710s? My history is not strong.


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Apr 16, 2013)

Tim said:


> Can someone suggest what was happening in the 1710s? My history is not strong.


Leibniz' _Theodicy_ arrived on the scene. 

If you click on the link in your search for 1702-1719 you can get a sense for the volume of works that would cause this peak. The names of the authors shown are informative. Here is your search 

for the peak year 1719:
https://www.google.com/search?q="God"&tbs=bks:1,cdr:1,cd_min:1719,cd_max:1719&lr=lang_en


with just the years 1709-1710:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22God%22&tbs=bks:1,cdr:1,cd_min:1709,cd_max:1710&lr=lang_en


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## newcreature (Apr 17, 2013)

Maybe I'm the slow one here, but what are these graphs used for?


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Apr 17, 2013)

newcreature said:


> Maybe I'm the slow one here, but what are these graphs used for?


See here.

Just another way of determining how a specific topic, word, etc., was being written about around a range of years using Google's acrhive of digitized content. One can see the graph showing the ebb and flow of the search terms through the years. Links below the graph show book content contributing to these ebb and flows. Peaks may point out something interesting or not. 

For example, why the two peaks for this search:
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Bible&year_start=1600&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Apr 17, 2013)

Tim said:


> It {the word 'government'} peaks in the 1640s


The peak years were 1643 and 1644. Here is a search from your own modified for the two years showing the contributors to the peak:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22government%22&tbs=bks:1,cdr:1,cd_min:1643,cd_max:1644&lr=lang_en

Oh, those pesky Scots and Presbyterians...


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## newcreature (Apr 17, 2013)

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> newcreature said:
> 
> 
> > Maybe I'm the slow one here, but what are these graphs used for?
> ...



Thanks. I don't suppose I would ever use such a graph.


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Apr 17, 2013)

VictorBravo said:


> OK, fixed it.


You are a kind soul.

For you:
Google Ngram Viewer

And during the peak of 1794-1800 some of your ancestors were likely included here:
https://www.google.com/search?num=1...DOL0yQHfhYDIBQ&ved=0CDIQBSgA&biw=1920&bih=836

To get the more narrow searches I have shown in this and some posts above, I am basically hacking the Google links shown for the broader search. All I do for the broad links to content for specific years is manually change the terms in the search results that are obviously the year ranges. Just using the ngram main search fields will not let the user search for actual content on narrow year ranges, so like all things Google, I like to hack their search result links with some manual fiddling just to see what and what I cannot get away with.

I hesitated putting this example up...now get ready for the onslought of vanity related searches. Sigh. 

AMR


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Apr 17, 2013)

newcreature said:


> Thanks. I don't suppose I would ever use such a graph.


Perhaps not, then again, there are lots of uses. One I just posted above involves some ancestral research. Or maybe you are interested in how someone's first or last name has appeared throughout history in written works.


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