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How do we do improve LSJ and other Greek dictionaries?

LSJ entry for βραχυκατάληκτος before and after editing

In the image above you can see the LSJ entry for βραχυκατάληκτος before (Perseus version) and after editing. Note how the shorthand has been expanded (even standard Latin abbreviations are made transparent, i.e. f.l. and s.v. are linked) and how new translations have been added (i.e. βραχυκαταλήκτως = with the final syllable short) and others sanitized in a format that is clear and reversal friendly (i.e. from "to end so" to "terminate in a short syllable"). Also, if you see the revised entry, links and prosody have been added (refer to the Full diacritics form). Perseus's links—due to the unsafe method of using prosody marks within the actual lemma content—are often broken (i.e. the βρα^χυ^-καταληκτέω link).

Now, multiply the above procedure to 130,000 or so LSJ entries (many of which are much more extensive than the example cited here), as well as hundreds of thousands of entries from other dictionaries, and you get an idea of the scope of this project (which is not funded by anybody).

What is LSJ

The Liddell, Scott, Jones Ancient Greek Lexicon (LSJ) is perhaps the best known Ancient Greek-English dictionary. Here you can find a wiki implementation aiming to massively improve upon the dictionary resources in numerous ways like adding missing translations and expanding lexicographical shorthand into clarity among others.

Different types of transliterations and word forms were used, so that everyone is happy: Ancient Greek scholars, speakers of Modern Greek, people who prefer transliterated Greek or Beta Code.

For example, you will get results on the search box no matter whether you type in polytonic Greek, monotonic Greek, Greek without any accents at all, or transliterated Greek. You can even add a search form on your web site or a quick search link on your browser.

Over time, the site was enriched with more content and languages as outlined below, turning it into a classics hub.

Bidirectional language pairs

• Ancient Greek ⇄ English (LSJ ≈130,000 terms; Woodhouse digitized and edited is available for English to Ancient Greek—38,000+ terms—as well as a reversed version from Ancient Greek into English—≈17,000 terms; LSJ's reversal is under preparation)
• Ancient Greek ⇄ Spanish (reversal based on DGE—63,000+ Ancient Greek to Spanish terms; 80,000+ Spanish to Ancient Greek terms)
• Ancient Greek ⇄ Dutch (reversal based on Mijnwoordenboek—≈17,000 Ancient Greek to Dutch terms; 22,000+ Dutch to Ancient Greek terms)
• Ancient Greek ⇄ Russian (reversal based on Dvoretsky's dictionary—≈70,000 terms per direction)
• Latin ⇄ German (Karl Ernst Georges)
• Ancient Greek ⇄ Italian (under preparation)

Unidirectional language pairs

• Ancient Greek 🠒 French (Bailly abrégé—56,755 terms; Bailly 2021 and French to Ancient Greek under preparation)
• Ancient Greek 🠒 German (Wilhelm Pape—105,019 terms; German to Ancient Greek under preparation)
• Ancient Greek 🠒 Chinese (5,934 terms)
• Ancient Greek 🠒 Modern Greek
• Ancient Greek 🠒 Any language (200,000 terms)
• Latin 🠒 English (Lewis and Short)
• Latin 🠒 French (Gaffiot)
• Hebrew 🠒 English (Strong)

News

• 10/2022: 5,000 pages with Multilingual Translations section (containing from 5 to 500 languages), i.e. μύωψ, ἀνίκητος, περισσός, κλέπτης, κλέπτω (note the synonymy for both English and Ancient Greek).
• 10/2021: Double click on any word to look it up.
• 5/2021: Bill Berg, the site's classics consultant, has passed away
• 1/2021: Popups on mouseover, i.e. page previews when hovering over a link.
• 12/2020: Implementation of a special theme for mobile devices with sections collapsed. Tapping on a section expands it.
• 6/2020: Use a dark theme via a browser extension or browser/OS dark mode preference.
• 5/2020: Woodhouse updates with further processing/linkification/corrections/reversal/errata started rolling out. Hebrew to English entries imported (13,674 pages) from Strong's Hebrew Dictionary.

• 10/2019: First batch with 70,000 Russian to Ancient Greek entries imported. Try a search with Cyrillic characters.

• 2019: Intensive work is being done in producing reverse versions (i.e. from other languages to Ancient Greek) of multiple ancient Greek dictionaries: LSJ (English), Bailly (French), Pape (German), and Dvoretski (Russian).

• 2019 February: Site migrated to lsj.gr

• 2018: Dictionaries have been added from Ancient Greek to Russian and Dutch. Also, from Dutch to Ancient Greek.

• 2017: Many more dictionaries have been added from Ancient Greek to English, French, Spanish and German; also, now you can search from Latin to English, French and German, thus turning LSJ.gr into a Classics Hub.

• 2013 February 14: Site online for the first time in the URL lsj.translatum.gr

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