CAPL, the Culturally Authentic Pictorial Lexicon originally founded at Washington and Jefferson College in 2003, re-launches today. From the announcement email:

“CAPL is a free, online, non-commercial visual glossary comprised of authentic photos for language and cultural instruction and research. Created at Washington & Jefferson College, CAPL seeks to provide teachers and learners with high-quality authentic images for their classrooms and teaching materials. Additionally, it provides researchers in applied linguistics, visual cognition, and automated image recognition with a database of high-quality culturally authentic images they can use in their research. At the core of CAPL is the generous creative commons license.”

CAPL is based on the premise that “visual perception is culturally determined and visual cognition varies from culture to culture.” It asks the question, “Is a house really a Haus, is pain really хлеб, and when we see red cabbage, is it really red?” To find out, go check out CAPL for yourself!

All CAPL images are licensed CC BY-NC.