Classical Language Software

[Hampie]

Howdyhoo! I don't recall ever seing any thread about software made for aiding classical language learners, and I have some (MacOS X) programs I've found I'd like to share (and I hope others know of more!).

Windows:


GNU/Linux:
Collatinus
KLatin
Aspell has a (albeit crappy!) spellchecker for Latin (it underlines almost every word in the Æneid as errors...)

Mac OSX:
Collatinus parses a text and generates a wordlist.
Verba is a small program for searching Lewis and Short locally.
Withaker's WORDS, fully ported to Cocoa, for those who does not like the CLI.
Andromeda, a Diogenes-ish program with a prettier interface.

Apple iOS
Lexidum Latin, an app with the Lewis and Short dictionary and a roman-to-arabic numeral converter with a pretty interface.
Lexiphanes Greek, an app with the Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon and Autenrieth's Homeric Lexicon, and also a greek-to-arabic numeral converter.


Webb apps:
Poëta ex machinâ parses latin poetry, and can read it aloud.
Neo Dictionaries parses a latin text and generates an interlinear reader, based on Whittaker's WORDS.
Perseus Hopper, explanation unnecessary.

[Scribo]

gratias tibhi ago, amice, quaerebam, ignosces mala latine mea, non studeo ....wow I can't believe how poor my Latin has gone. :S

[modus.irrealis]

There's also Diogenes which lets you have lots of the good stuff from Perseus (dictionaries, morphological parser) on your computer. (Also, I don't know if the main perseus site still has connectivity issues, but I use this mirror at the University of Chicago site, and I really like the interface there for everything and I've never had any connection issues.)

[Auberon]

The topic reminds me of a question I've had for a long time: why are there so many materials for those students studying Biblical Greek? There are tons of video and audio resources, and there's a lot of specially made software. Is this because those studying Biblical Greek are not necessarily students of language, but rather students of the Bible? (Is the study of Greek pushed on seminary students forcing them to learn Biblical Greek quickly?)

The range of materials that exists for Biblical Greek doesn't seem to exist for Attic Greek---it's this observation that prompted the question.

[Hampie]

The topic reminds me of a question I've had for a long time: why are there so many materials for those students studying Biblical Greek? There are tons of video and audio resources, and there's a lot of specially made software. Is this because those studying Biblical Greek are not necessarily students of language, but rather students of the Bible? (Is the study of Greek pushed on seminary students forcing them to learn Biblical Greek quickly?)

The range of materials that exists for Biblical Greek doesn't seem to exist for Attic Greek---it's this observation that prompted the question.

Defedenty due to the fact that the Bible is in Koine. And, as you say, it is aimed for students of the Bible rather than the Greek itself – it's just a necessary tool. I have an aquintance who knows Koine due to the fact that he's been studying theology for a couple of years.

In USA christian religiousness is quite common and albeit the funny ones only finding King James the truth, I think many of the more geeky christians provide a pretty good market for NT Greek software.

[Lex]

There are tons of video and audio resources, and there's a lot of specially made software. Is this because those studying Biblical Greek are not necessarily students of language, but rather students of the Bible? (Is the study of Greek pushed on seminary students forcing them to learn Biblical Greek quickly?)

They are definitely students of the Bible first, and students of Greek (and Hebrew) second. But this is not necessarily about seminary students alone. Hampie is right; a lot of American Christians want to get a better understanding of the Bible by going straight to the source, so to speak, and bypassing translators. I think it speaks to some Gnostic urge in most religious people, that makes them want to know the true mysteries of the religion. Anyway, if you believe that a book contains the revealed word of the One True God, you tend to take it very seriously. People who study Greek for non-religious reasons may believe that the Iliad is a wondrous treasure of Western civilization, but they don't believe it's the holy word of God. People who did not grow up in areas where religion is still taken seriously tend not to understand this.

Having said this, I think another reason is because books and other tools on Biblical Greek can be so focused. After all, there is only one book that is of truly special interest, as opposed to classical Greek or Latin, where there are many books among which to diffuse one's efforts.

[Hampie]

It's vert possible to make a dictionary of all the words in the bible. Would not really take long. It's also very doable to make a couse book teaching all the grammar and all the greek that is in the bible. Seems kind of booring to learn a language for just one book though – that is the main reason that I'll never do gothic nor ancient hewbrew.

[Cattus]

Another interesting web:
http://www.latinedisce.net/: basic multilingual dictionary and exercises for practising Latin vocabulary.