Mission

Alpheios builds evidence-based, open-source software to support study of the world's classical languages and literatures.

We will help people learn how to learn languages as efficiently and enjoyably as possible, and in a way that best helps them understand their own literary heritage and culture, and the literary heritage and culture of other peoples throughout history.

Our initial focus is on classical literature in languages no longer spoken, such as Latin and ancient Greek. The influence of these classics, like the river Alpheios, still runs like a subterranean stream deep beneath the contemporary world, as artists and thinkers continue to draw inspiration from them.

Next priorities include supporting more languages, including Persian, Syriac and Hebrew, and adding audio and imagery as well as language learning aids and games. Longer term goals include using the Alpheios platform to collect big data on how different individuals can best learn the historical languages (those without living native speakers) and appreciate their classical literature, and how this data can be interpreted neurophysiologically to shed light on human literacy and response to literature in general.

Partners and Projects

The Alpheios project uses resources from and is grateful to the following projects:

• Ancient Greek Tutorials
• Beta maṣāḥǝft: Manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea
• Beth Mardutho, The Syriac Institute
• CapiTainS
• CC-CEDICT
• The Center for the Advanced Study of Language (CASL) at the University of Maryland, College Park
• Collatinus
• The Digital Latin Library
• The Packard Humanities Institute
• The Perseids Project at Tufts University
• The Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University
• The Perseus Latin and Ancient Greek Dependency Treebanks
• QAMUS LLC
• The Roshan Institute for Persian Studies at University of Maryland, College Park
• Whitaker's Words