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Hi Greg and all, I think the point is not necessary how difficult it is to read the text in scriptio continua or how e.g. the unechte Diphtonge are handled, but to illustrate that a) textual mark-up is very useful and especially b) that the idea of textual mark-up is not new and that philologist have done it for centuries — with the sole purpose to break down some resistance and fear of the digital textual mark-up in the audience of the Mommsen Society's meeting. It is important to stress that the traditional mark-up however is focused (and maybe even overtrained) on the book medium and a human reader. In a digital format, however, there is a clear difference between the textual data itself and the visualisation of the data. While the visualisation can still mimic the book medium (use-case depending obviously), data has to be marked-up in a way that it minimises information loss and that it becomes truly machine-actionable/readable; not to replace the scholar, but to give the scholar a more stable footing. I know that even Wilamowitz cannot always remember where he has read something and I know of a footnote where he explicitly says that he is very sure that a reference supporting a point he makes exist, but that he cannot find this particular reference anymore. Ironically, I cannot find this particular Wilamowitz quotation right now, although I know it exist. Instead I give you another (much weaker) example by the same author in which he tried to find supporting evidence or completion when dealing with fragments, but gave up because the task was to time-consuming (n .5): http://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/book/view/wilamowitz_aristoteles02_1893/?p=318 Wilamowitz's task would be much less time-consuming when using a computer and textual data in a machine-actionable/readable, marked-up format. So the very important question is how scientific and data-driven do we want Classics to be, or (in your particular scenario) how scientific and data-driven does the Mommsen Gesellschaft want Classics to be? This is also a discussion that is not completely new. I remember having read a polemic exchange Wilamowitz vs. Nietzsche about a similar topic (Nimis outlines it here: https://www.academia.edu/5111437/Fussnoten_Das_Fundament_der_Wissenschaft). The exchange is quite entertaining and a worthy read (Nimis maybe a bit harsh on the good old Wilamowitz though. I wonder what he would have replied). Cheers, Thomas PS: After re-reading my email and seeing that it names Nietzsche, Mommsen (indirectly), and Wilamowitz, I conclude that it mayl be authoritative enough for the Society's meeting. ;) Dr Thomas Koentges Research Scholar Digital Humanities Universität Leipzig [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] Quoting Susan Ford <[log in to unmask]>: > Hi Greg and all > > I particularly like Marion's idea of making the point boustrophedon > (so to speak) — > supposing one can vaguely justify it for Aeschylus. > > A while ago I found on the Web a random bit of the Iliad so > re-written — boustr', hand-written caps, no accents — > not an actual inscription, just an imaginative re-construction. I > printed it off and was very surprised > to discover that it was not at all difficult to read. > > Susan > PhD candidate, Classics, College of Arts and Social Sciences > Research assistant, College of Asia and the Pacific > The Australian National University > ________________________________________ > From: The Digital Classicist List [[log in to unmask]] > on behalf of Lamé Marion [[log in to unmask]] > Sent: 13 April 2015 04:11 > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: [DIGITALCLASSICIST] what might Aeschylus' original text > have looked like? > > Hi Greg, Neel, Helma, Marja and Alcorac, > > > I apologise for my clumsy English. > I do agree with all the previous answers. Each invite in their own > way to be precise and careful. I do thank you because it gave me the > occasion to re-open my lesson book of Greek Epigraphy, that is the > “small” Guarducci in one volume only. > > GUARDUCCI, Margherita. 1987. L’epigrafia Greca Dalle Origini Al > Tardo Impero. Roma: Libreria dello Stato / Istituto Poligrafico e > Zecca dello Stato. > > Epigraphic communication has its linguistic rules and the linguistic > common foundations/roots between epigraphic and non epigraphic texts > shed lights to understand both categories. Nonetheless, they should > not be amalgamated /mixed, as Helma explained well, inviting to be > very careful in mixing epigraphic communication's style with > literary texts. Otherwise, it would be like attempting to use > hieroglyphs (epigraphic writing and language of Ancient Egypt) to > illustrate what can be done with some lost demotic texts (daily > writings on papyrus) to say it in a very insufficient, exaggerated > and artificial way (we all know the linguistics rules of epigraphic > and non epigraphic writings of Ancient Egypt, so we would not > attempt such a thing, unless forced by good scholar motivation). In > other words, it would be something like taking the inscriptions on > post-world war II memorial of North America as a model to reproduce > some lost Tennessee Williams' works: most of the time upper letters > and very few punctuation on one hand, lower case letter, complex > punctuation and specific layout in the other hand. Working without a > genuine primary source of information implies the risk to create a > digital unicum that never existed in the cultural reality of the > society that produced the texts. > > A lot depends on Greg's goal. > > > 1) Trying to reach something closer to Eschylus text when it was > produced (supposing that some written stable version existed at the > time of representation on stage), taking inspiration of local > inscriptions of the Athic region in the VIth and Vth century BC ? > This is how I have understood Greg's goal, even if it seems to me > risky and odd the way I just wrote down this question, so I am not > sure that this is exactly his goal. > > > 2) Displaying what can be down with genuine texts of the VIth and > the Vth texts (whatever the text is), as Neel suggests? Isn't it > already an on going work in Digital Epigraphy everywhere? > > In the first case, very insufficient recommendations could be. >> * convert all etas and omegas to epsilons and omicrons + glyph “H” >> instead of spiritus asper. that matches Athic alphabet before the >> "riforma «euclidea»" in 403/2 B.C, as Alcorac confirmed. Even if >> the problems of glyphs: in Athic alphabet gamma take the shape of a >> upper lambda, many letters have several different atypical glyphs. >> H = H letter or etas, according to the Unicode encoding used, latin >> H means etas in betacode. And in the “Eschylus” case it would not >> mean none of those features. It is getting quite confused. > Poinikastas's letter forms are not very helpful to understand this > aspect as letters does not seem to be organized by alphabets, but at > least it gives a good idea of how heterogeneous and ambiguous glyphs > could be: http://poinikastas.csad.ox.ac.uk/browseGlyphs.shtml > > > NB. the "psy" solution "PI" + "SIGMA", given by Neel, does not > belong to Athic Alphabet and do not concern Eschylus as far as I > know. You can find this writing phenonema in inscriptions of the > Cyclades. And, in some places in Thessaly, one finds PHI+SIGMA > combination instead of PSY. > > > In addition to this, according to epigraphic evidence, writing in > retrograde way and boustrophedon writing are still used a lot during > the VIth century (and less during the Vth century): would we propose > all the configuration, ignoring what was the favourite writing > direction of Eschylus? > > >> * remove all accents, let's say OK... even if many other signs >> exist on ancient Greek and Roman texts, epigraphic or not. >> * remove all punctuation: I suppose Greg's mean the one we insert >> when we edit a text. >> * remove all distinction between upper and lower case: capital >> letter is used for epigraphic texts mainly. I imagine Eschylus >> leading his work with his text written on huge inscriptions in >> capital letters displayed in front of the choir saying: "now, let's >> thing!". Capital letters is mostly an epigraphic way of writing >> (for legibility and technical reasons of writing on hard material >> such as stones). Wax tablets, ductile metal (e.g. lead) force to >> use other way of writings also on inscription as papyrus do too. >> * Marja recommendation with very old papyrus (PÖHLMANN & WEST) is >> good sense from aesthetic/design/layout point of view. In addition >> to Marja's suggestion with papyrus, I would add to have a glance to >> the draft of inscriptions (the “minuta”) that is still sometimes >> visible and to see Jean Mallon and others for the relationship >> between palaeography, daily writings and inscriptions. > Of course, inscriptions may look appealing: epigraphic texts are the > most genuine evidence based material of the historical linguistic > way of writing in Ancient Greece and they brought us so many > interesting details. That is a huge temptation. But the Devil is > also in the detail and I would avoid such attempt. I ignore if some > quotations of some Eschylus' works exists with an epigraphic version > of it, as it happens sometimes with some other famous literary work. > My favourite inscriptions are quite of some examples of such > relationship between epigraphy and literature. Moreover, epigraphies > always cites literary works and vice e versa (see p. 41 to 45 in > BODEL, John, P. 2001. “Inscriptions and Litterature”, in Epigraphic > Evidence. Londres ; New York: Routledge). Epigraphic epigrams with > also a Medieval tradition might be very good examples. So maybe some > example of this kind would be more appropriate. So maybe, in the > mailing list, some people could recommend a couple of such references. > > Hope this help, > > Marion > > > ________________________________ > De : Helma Dik <[log in to unmask]> > À : [log in to unmask] > Envoyé le : Dimanche 12 avril 2015 17h18 > Objet : Re: [DIGITALCLASSICIST] what might Aeschylus' original text > have looked like? > > I kind of see the temptation of this, but I would want to push back > a bit and stress that a language, and a fortiori, musical theater in > that language, is never fully captured or characterized by its > writing system or spelling conventions. Turkish written in Arabic or > Roman characters is still the same language but it will be radically > easier for most of us on this list to read it when in Roman > characters. Ditto for the Greek alphabet vs the Linear B syllabary, > an ungainly way to represent Greek of any era (or English, for that > matter). > > What you do by representing English in morse code, or Greek in beta > code, or by removing it from our daily experience in any other way, > like using a restored C5 notation for Greek, is momentarily causing > an alienating effect, but to the C5 user, it would have been the > best (for most familiar) notation at the time. Consider for a moment > a more phonetic spelling of English: because we are so used to the > look of words in their current spelling, it would slow us down > dramatically. > > Obviously, presenting students with scriptio continua texts, an > exercise I'm sure many of us have been subjected to/have subjected > our students to, is pedagogically useful when in the service of > papyrology, epigraphy, and palaeography, just as our students are > forced to start dealing with iota adscript vs. subscript conventions > depending on the editions we choose to work with. And of course it > is also in line with the time-honored tradition of > "philology-as-torture-instrument". However, none of these > non-conventional notations need be considered more > 'wissenschaftlich'; I would rather tend to consider them > affectations:-) > > Anyway, to make it less like a parlor trick, one could look instead > to the long tradition of third-party annotation (in the broadest > sense, including the spatial organization of texts) instead: In many > ways, these linguistic annotations (the evidence from musical > inscriptions, papyri, metrical inscriptions featuring word boundary > markers, etc.) go back just about as far in time, and are more > representative of what writing is used for: re-performance, > re-interpretation, etc. by someone other than the original author. > Here too, whether looking at papyri, inscriptions, or the Venetus A, > and comparing early Aldine editions with, say, Teubners, you can > show that the 19th century editions are not the only thinkable > formatting choices available, so that yes, their representational > choices should be considered forms of 'annotation'. > > Recalcitrantly conventionally yours, > Helma > > Helma Dik > Department of Classics > University of Chicago > > > > > On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 7:12 AM, Neel Smith > <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: > Why not pull up a real 5th c inscription, even if can't be Aeschylus? > > Two things not on your list that people who've already studied Greek > often find jarring when they first look at a classical inscription: > > - use of the "epsilon" and "omicron" characters to spell the > "unechte Diphthonge", and absence of double consonants (xi and psi, > spelled chi + sigma and pi + sigma) > > > Woodhead's _Introduction to Greek Epigraphy_ is probably an easy > source to find good examples. > > > >> On Apr 11, 2015, at 10:13 PM, Gregory Crane >> <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: >> >> I am getting ready to speak to the Mommsen Society in Germany next >> week and I would like to make the point that linguistic annotation >> is not new -- rather, it is so entrenched in our scholarship that >> we have forgotten the extent to which we embed it in our work. >> >> I would like to use an edition of Aeschylus as an example and to >> show first a 19th century edition and then show the text as it >> might have appeared if we had whatever text Aeschylus initially >> produced (however he produced it and assuming he had a single >> stable text). >> >> I am not an expert in the writing of 5th century Athens and assume >> we derive virtually all of our understanding from epigraphic data >> but there I am certainly no expert. >> >> To get a closer approximation of what Aeschylus might have produced >> I would do the following: >> >> * convert all etas and omegas to epsilons and omicrons >> * remove all accents >> * remove all punctuation >> * remove all distinction between upper and lower case >> >> Any suggestions to correct or improve that? >> >> Greg