Coptic SCRIPTORIUM Blog

New Corpora Release 4.5.0

October 24, 2023 / Lydia Bremer-McCollum / 0 Comments

Image of a search in ANNIS — Searching for “people” in Shenoute’s *God Who Alone is True*

We are pleased to announce release 4.5.0 of Coptic Scriptorium! Our data now includes over 1,278,500 tokens of searchable, linguistically analyzed Coptic data from dozens of ancient Coptic works (an increase of over 11,500 tokens from the previous release).

This release corrects a large number of consistency errors identified in our existing data, and also adds some new documents:

Revisions to five works of Besa:
Sections of three works by Shenoute of Atripe:
New documents were added to existing works:
- Acephalous Work 22
- Apophthegmata Patrum
Newly treebanked data with syntactic gold standard annotations for 1 Corinthians 7

We are very grateful to all of our collaborators and contributors, without whom this project could not function. We welcome Christine Ayad, Lydia Bremer-McCollum, Adeline Harrington, and Nina Speranskaja.

As with all releases, raw machine readable data for all corpora can be found, including morphological and syntactic analysis, as well as named entity recognition and entity linking, on our GitHub repository, in a variety of popular formats:

https://github.com/copticscriptorium/corpora

You can also search for complex linguistic annotations in the data using our ANNIS server – please see our new tutorial here to get started with some query tips and a helpful cheat sheet:

https://copticscriptorium.org/ANNIS_tutorial

We hope this release will be useful and look forward to the next one as always!

Online Coptic Scriptorium Reading Group

October 4, 2023 / Lydia Bremer-McCollum / 0 Comments

Description:

The online Coptic Scriptorium Reading Group consists of a series of short term reading units focused on a particular Coptic text or corpus. The group will focus on reading, analyzing, and translating a set of Coptic texts found in the digital corpus of the Coptic Scriptorium project. We will also practice reading out loud. In addition, the reading units will introduce and demonstrate a variety of Coptic focused digital humanities tools. These include especially the Coptic Online Dictionary and tools for linguistic and corpus analysis. Participants will leave with stronger Coptic reading facility, grammar review, and an introduction to a range of open-access digital humanities tools for studying Coptic.

Audience:

This group is perfect for Coptologists, historians, linguists, heritage learners, and hobbyists alike. All are welcome! The reading group and text/corpus sequence are designed for introductory and lower-intermediate level reading ability (1-2 semesters of instruction or a roughly equivalent amount of self-directed learning). In other words, some previous grammar training and knowledge of the alphabet will be presumed.

Email organizer (lcbm@ou.edu) if you would like to join or if you have questions about your fit for the group! Zoom link will be shared with the email list.

Schedule:

Meet via Zoom for 1 hour 3x per week.

Time: 10:00am EST | 9:00am CST | 7:00am PST

4:00pm CEST | 3:00pm BST | 5:00pm EEST | 11:00pm JST

Note: Attendance at all sessions within a series is not required. Moreover, the series can be taken sequentially, but it is not assumed or required. Feel free to drop-in as your schedule and interest allow!

Fall/Winter 2023 Dates:

Sequence A:

October 23rd, 25th, 27th, 30th, 1st, 3rd (6 hours total)

Reading Material: Apothegmata Patrum Selections

Sequence B:

November 6th, 8th, 10th, 13th, 15th, 17th (6 hours total)

Reading Material: Ruth Selections

Sequence C:

December 4th, 6th, 8th, 11th, 13th, 15th, 18th, 20th (8 hours total)

Reading Material: Apothegmata Patrum Selections

2024 Schedule TBD

Note: Time and weekly meeting frequency of sequence B and C are subject to change based on group feedback.

Group Organizer:

Dr. Lydia Bremer-McCollum (she/hers) holds ten+ years of experience reading and translating Coptic. She has taught introductory and intermediate courses at Harvard and Princeton Universities. As part of the NEH funded Coptic Scriptorium project, she aims to create an online Coptic reading community focused on reading and utilizing the rich set of open-access tools. Feel free to contact her with any questions at lcbm@ou.edu

Title slide to "Learning and Teaching Coptic" (Schroeder, St Shenouda-UCLA Conference, 2023)

Learning and Teaching Coptic with Coptic Scriptorium’s Resources

Today I had the pleasure of giving a presentation at the annual St. Shenouda Society-UCLA Conference of Coptic Studies. My talk illustrates various ways the Coptic Scriptorium project’s texts and tools can help Coptic language learners become more proficient in Coptic. Whether you are a student in a course, an instructor, or someone wanting to learn or improve your knowledge of Coptic, there are many resources online to help you. I’ve posted the slides here for everyone to access, and they go through how to use advanced features of the online Dictionary, basic natural language processing tools to decipher confusing or complicated grammar, and ways to read digitized text to improve reading skills.

I hope it’s useful!

StShenoudaSoc-2023-public Download

Hiring a DH Specialist in Coptic Studies

June 21, 2023 / ctschroeder / 0 Comments

Coptic Scriptorium is hiring one more staff member, starting in September 2023. This position runs through at least August 2024 and can be renewed potentially up through July 2026. It is part-time (on average 15 hours/week). Full details in the ad attached!

Thank you to the National Endowment for the Humanities (Preservation and Access Division) and the University of Oklahoma Office of the Vice Provost for Research and Partnerships for the funding and support for this position!!

OU-Digital-Humanities-Specialist-Job-Ad-Fall-2023 Download

Hiring for a 1-year Postdoctoral Fellow

May 10, 2023 / ctschroeder / 5 Comments

Coptic Scriptorium is hiring for a 1-year, full-time Postdoctoral Fellow to work with us on expanding the number of Coptic texts we have available and on annotating those texts.

Full details are in the job ad. This position is remote with virtual meetings and occasional travel to the University of Oklahoma or Georgetown University or other work sites (travel funding covered by OU).

If you are considering applying but have a dissertation defense/completion date firmly set during August (rather than prior to August 1), we can consider your application; please note in your letter your specific timetable, and if we decide to interview you we can discuss the timetable in the interview.

If you applied for the summer position previously advertised and would like to apply for this position, as well, please do send a new full application for this position.

We will begin reviewing applications next week and will conduct virtual interviews either at the end of this month or very early June. This position is funded jointly by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Oklahoma Office of the Vice Provost for Research and Partnerships.

OU-CS-Digital-Humanities-Research-Fellow-Job-Ad-Fall-2023 Download

Hiring for a part-time summer position!

May 2, 2023 / ctschroeder / 0 Comments

We are hiring for a summer part time position! The full description is below, but the highlights are:

must know Coptic
10-20 hours per week
remote work
supervised by Prof. Caroline T. Schroeder at the University of Oklahoma
position begins May 15 or as soon thereafter as the hiring paperwork etc. can be completed
send a letter, CV, and names/contact info for 2 references to WGS@ou.edu

In addition, because of the nature of the position, we can only hire someone who is in the US and eligible to work in the US.

We will begin reviewing applications May 8.

This is perfect for a grad student, recent PhD, or part-time academic looking for some extra income over the summer

Busy this summer but wish you could apply? We will be hiring for one or two more positions to start in August or September. Watch this space!

OU-Digital-Humanities-Specialist-Job-Ad-Summer-2023 Download

Coptic Scriptorium Awarded an NEH Grant to Expand Corpora and Add More Dialects

April 19, 2023 / ctschroeder / 0 Comments

The Coptic Scriptorium team is honored to have been awarded an NEH Preservation and Access/Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Implementation Grant in the amount of $349,887. This award will fund a 3-year project Expanding Coptic Digital Online Collections. You can read the press release and list of awarded grants on the NEH site. This initiative will enable Coptic Scriptorium to improve the user experience, to expand our digital database of richly annotated texts in the Sahidic dialect, and to develop natural language tools and searchable, annotated, digitized corpora for additional dialects, including Bohairic. Caroline T. Schroeder (University of Oklahoma) is PI, and Amir Zeldes (Georgetown University) is co-PI. The team also includes Rebecca Krawiec (Canisius College), Christine Luckritz Marquis (Union Presbyterian Seminary), and Hany Takla (St. Shenouda Society), as well as a diverse advisory board. We thank our whole team past and present for the work that led to this stage, and we are grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities for their ongoing support.

New Corpora Release 4.4.0

September 30, 2022 / Amir Zeldes / 0 Comments

Searching for Greek words in Shenoute’s *So Concerning the Little Place*

We are pleased to announce release 4.4.0 of Coptic Scriptorium! Our data now includes over 1,267,000 tokens of searchable, linguistically analyzed Coptic data from dozens of ancient Coptic works (an increase of almost 100,000 tokens from the previous release). We are very grateful to all of our collaborators and contributors, without whom this project could not function.

This release corrects a large number of consistency errors identified in our existing data, and also adds some new documents:

Sections of three works by Shenoute of Artipe:
New documents added to existing works:
- Acephalous Work 22
- Apophthegmata Patrum
The remaining books 2-4, as well as the postscript of Pistis Sophia, which are now added to the previously released book 1 in our online interfaces
Newly treebanked data with syntactic gold standard annotations for the Life of John the Kalybites, part 1

We would like to thank the Marcion Project for making the underlying digitized text of Pistis Sophia available, and all of the annotators for their hard work. Tamara Siuda, Rebecca Krawiec, Philippe Zaher, and Lance Martin contributed, in addition to Amir and Carrie. As our current DHAG grant ends, we would like to give special thanks to Lance, who has been working as our DH specialist on the project since 2019, for doing an amazing job of keeping track of all the data and the various tasks he’s been in charge of over the past three years!

https://github.com/copticscriptorium/corpora

You can also search for complex linguistic annotations in the data using our ANNIS server – please see our new tutorial here to get started with some query tips and a helpful cheat sheet:

https://copticscriptorium.org/ANNIS_tutorial

We hope this release will be useful and look forward to the next one as always!

New links for tools and services

August 5, 2022 / ctschroeder / 0 Comments

After our recent server outage, we’ve been re-installing our tools and software. Some of our services are now available at new URLs.

The ANNIS database is now at https://annis.copticscriptorium.org/annis/scriptorium

Our Sahidic Coptic natural language processing tools are at https://tools.copticscriptorium.org/coptic-nlp

Our GitDox annotation tool is at https://tools.copticscriptorium.org/gitdox/scriptorium

The Coptic Dictionary online is still at https://coptic-dictionary.org, and our tool for browsing and reading texts is still at https://data.copticscriptorium.org

Thanks for your patience!

Coptic Scriptorium services are back online!

July 14, 2022 / ctschroeder / 0 Comments

Thank you to Amir and the staff at Georgetown University. Most of our public applications, such as the ANNIS database and the Coptic Dictionary Online, are back in service.