The subject of the interdisciplinary project, which combines egyptological research with methods from computer philology, consists of the ancient Egyptian scripts called Hieratic and cursive hieroglyphic script, both having been used alongside monumental hieroglyphic script for over 3000 years. The inventory of signs taken from selected texts is systematically and digitally recorded with different…
This project focuses upon the publication of dictionaries on the medieval language of Southern France. In addition to the “Dictionnaire onomasiologique de l’ancien gascon” (DAG), a thematically ordered dictionary of the Gascon linguistic sphere, equally conceived “Dictionnaire onomasiologique de l’ancien occitan” (DAO) encompassing the entire Old Occitan linguistic sphere, supplemented by means of…
In the Middle Ages, Old Occitan (formerly “Old Provençal”) was a literary and cultural language, the influence of which extended far beyond the frontiers of Southern France. It was also the language of the troubadours, whose songs had a decisive impact on the love poetry of the European literatures during the Middle Ages.
The only comprehensive portrayal of the Old Occitan vocabulary to have…
The binational research project “Arthur Schnitzler digital. Digitale historisch-kritische Edition (Werke 1905 bis 1931)” is carried out by scientists of the Bergische University Wuppertal, the University of Cambridge, the University College London, and the University of Bristol in cooperation with the Cambridge University Library, the German literary archive Marbach, and the Trier Centre for…
The “Augustinus-Lexikon” (AL) is a multivolume dictionary of terms and encyclopaedia of Augustine, his life and thinking, his works, people from his personal environment and his contemporary historical context (places, things and circumstances of social, political, cultural, and cultic importance), that comprises about 1200 lemmas.
The terms characteristic of Augustine’s thinking are presented…
The Aristotle annotations of Ibn Rušd or Averroes (1126–1198) form a total of the Arabic reception of the Greek philosophy and from the Late Antiquity. As such, they have had a formative influence on the respective discourses of knowledge, especially in their Latin and Hebrew translations over the centuries. The project deals with an yet unexplored part of Ibn Rušd’s natural philosophy, which at…
The systematic research into the Ethiopian manuscript culture is the aim of the long-term project “Die Schriftkultur des christlichen Äthiopiens und Eritreas: Eine multimediale Forschungsumgebung” (“Beta maṣāḥǝft: Manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea”). Ethiopia and Eritrea are situated, from the perspective of cultural history, both at the periphery of the so-called Christian Orient and in the…
For the first time, the research and edition project “Controversia et Confessio” systematically reappraises the theological controversies triggered by the Augsburg Interim and the Leipzig Alternative Draft of 1548, which could only be largely resolved by the large-scale theological unification of the Conoria Formula and the Konkordienbuch 1577/80. In these disputes, an early modern “culture of…
The aim of the project described below is to develop two fundamental desiderata of Koranic research: an edition of the Koranic text that meets critical standards and a comprehensive commentary on the Koran that consistently interprets it in the context of its historical context of origin. In contrast to the Kairen Koran edition of 1923, which is currently widespread, the project presented here is…
In addition to Roman and canonical law, the Sachsenspiegel (reported in the Eastern Harz foreland between 1220 and 1235) and the famous town charter of Magdeburg (developed in the town of Magdeburg and decisively shaped by the spellings of the local court chair between the 13th and 15th centuries) form the common foundations of Central and Eastern European legal systems. Simultaneously with the…
Medieval and early modern inscriptions crafted before 1650, in Latin and German language, situated in German-speaking areas are at the heart of this project. Inscriptions are significant and unique historical sources because they are often preserved in an authentic state and in their original setting. For the premodern era, script which was affixed to stone, wood, metal, glass as well as textiles…
The comprehensive Dictionary of historical German (and West Germanic) Legal Language explains and illustrates legally relevant vocabulary from the beginning of German written tradition (around AD 400) to 1815. Its basis is formed by an archive of roughly 2.5 million word quotations.
A volume of the Dictionary comprises 5 double fascicles of 320 columns each. The fascicles appear on a yearly…
In light of the rapid decline of the dialectal linguistic competence especially in the north of the German language area it is the goal of the DMW, by means of a first systematic survey of current data, to document and analyse the still tangible stocks of the dialects or the manner of speaking with the maximal variation from standard of two generations of speakers in the Midwest of Germany.…
Through critical editions of authoritative commentaries and sermons on Old Testament texts as well as comparative studies, the Academy's project “Die alexandrinische und antiochenische Bibelexegese in der Spätantike” opens up a central part of the literature of ancient Christianity - namely the interpretation of that part of the Christian Holy Scripture which Christianity shares with its mother…
The research project “Die frühbuddhistischen Handschriften aus Gandhāra: religiöse Literatur an der Schnittstelle von Indien, Zentralasien und China” was established in 2012. On the basis of philological and historical methods, it provides new insight into the early history of Buddhism on its way to becoming a world religion. The project studies manuscripts found in the 1990s in northern Pakistan…
The School of Salamanca or “Spanish late scholasticism” of the 16th and early 17th centuries is one of the most influential epochs of early modern European thought because of its importance for jurisprudence and political philosophy. The project has two objectives: Firstly, to digitally record and present the central texts of the “School of Salamanca” in an overall corpus that follows uniform…
The Coptic-Sahidic Bible is one of the most important literary witnesses of Christianity in the eastern Mediterranean. The Coptic Old Testament, which essentially dates back to the 4th century, is one of the earliest and most extensive versions of the Greek Septuagint (LXX). The translation of the Bible into Coptic was source and inspiration for the entire Coptic-Christian literature of Egypt. In…
At the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz and in cooperation with the Technical University of Darmstadt, a digital dictionary of surnames is being developed. For the first time, this dictionary records all currently existing family names Germany (also foreign names) lexicographically, maps them and etymologizes them with the help of maps.
The DWDS dictionary is based on the six-volume “Wörterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache” and on other sources, such as on parts of the “Großes Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache” published by the Dudenverlag. It provides the user with state-of-the-art spelling, pronunciation in form of audio files and a wide range of information on the form, usage and meaning of approximately 210,000 keywords.…
Robert and Clara Schumann: The great pair of musicians of German romanticism has left a lasting impression on the cultural history of the 19th century. The contacts to almost all the important musicians of the time, but also to poets and painters, to publishers, to friends, and family members are reflected in an extensive correspondence, about which Robert Schumann kept meticulous books. As a…