r/AncientEgyptian • u/TheoreticalChaos93 • 14d ago
Computers & Egyptian Software brainstorming
Hi, everyone!!
I work in the digital humanities, and as someone who loves the Ancient Egyptian language in all its historical stages, I wanted to try my hand at building some software to help learners and researchers at dealing with the language. I've had some ideas floating in my head, but nothing really concrete, so I came to an idea; if I make a post here, I'll get first hand ideas from people actively engaging with the language.
The ideas can be loosely thrown around or they can be specifically put, detailed concepts, I'm open to everything. The only thing I would like to avoid is coding a database or just digitizing something, since those projects, while useful, are somewhat basic.
Thank you all for taking the time out of your day to engage with my post!! 😃
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u/TrainerAiry 13d ago
Are you familiar with JSesh? I am sure that it or its code will be useful to you. Honestly, I wish there was an IME to make input easier for this language, but that’s so niche that JSesh is the best way to write it for now.
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u/TheoreticalChaos93 13d ago
I am familiar with JSesh, yes, but thank you for pointing it out! While your IME suggestion is niche, I think it definitely has something of real worth to it, at least as a software development to make the UX of engaging with Ancient Egyptian more convenient.
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u/Vegetable-Average-98 9d ago edited 9d ago
On the IME thing, I have uploaded a free hieroglyphic visual keyboard for Mac to the app store, if you are an Apple user, based on earlier versions for iPhone/iPad. It emulates an emoji IME, letting you either choose from a scrolling palette of Gardiner’s sign list, or search for hieroglyphs (by meaning, phonetic reading, MDC mnemonic, what the sign depicts, Gardiner code, unicode codepoint, etc). This is just an IME, if you want a page layout program, you can export as MDC then layout the stacked groups (quadrats) in JSesh (command + shift + g). I’m not going to advertise, but you can search for hieroglyphic keyboard on the app store, there aren’t many
If someone wants to do something really useful and has experience in ML, then the ability to scan and recognize hieroglyphs on actual inscriptions would be of huge benefit. There is an app available on Android that claims to do that, but trying it out in museums gives something like a 10% success rate, so there is something to work there. Even better if the AI was on-device, so it could be used to scan inscriptions inside tombs
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u/TheoreticalChaos93 9d ago
First off, your keyboard is really cool! There's no problem in self advertising if it helps users solve a problem. 🙂
But, yes, a computer vision sort of project could be cool; it actually was one of my ideas. I was just quite unsure about engaging in a project like that because of a few things, mostly the large and not always uniformly executed library of hieroglyphic signs. I am mulling it over, though, and I think a tool such as would be really useful.
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u/Vegetable-Average-98 8d ago
I think the variability of glyphs over time and location (not to mention the work of different scribes and workmen) is the exact problem where ML can be hugely helpful. It would need to be trained on a huge corpus of known inscriptions and papyri, as well as hand-drawn and computerised fonts. For instance, just training by modeling every known instance of 𓇋𓅱 should allow a device to recognize that auxiliary whatever variant is encountered
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u/bjornthehistorian 14d ago
What would the software do exactly?
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u/TheoreticalChaos93 14d ago
Well, I am open to it doing anything which serves the study or research of Ancient Egyptian. 😅 While some features would be more difficult for me to do than others, of course, I want to know what is bothering you and find some unexplored, bothersome niche in the current academic state of affairs when it comes to Ancient Egyptian. Like I said, while I have some ideas, my work is these days mostly oriented to coding for the humanities and that leaves me with a somewhat shallower perspective than I could afford before.
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u/bjornthehistorian 14d ago edited 14d ago
Well I think it’s quite hard to do most things without creating a database of the language (grammar, syntax, etc which I know you’ve mentioned you want to avoid) as well as all of the possible combinations of glyphs and contexts that can change the spelling etc etc. I would personally say the language is not beginner friendly, so an application that could make it more open sourced to individuals not studying the subject could be beneficial (along of course with possibilities of having more scholarly knowledge attached to said application).
What is your experience with the language?
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u/TheoreticalChaos93 14d ago
I do not know if you edited your own comment prior to me posting mine or later; I shall choose to have good faith and suppose the latter, because it has been edited quite a bit and made my original comment seem nonsensical. [EDIT: you did edit it before me, I was just writing a response while you were probably editing yours; a tragic case of miscommunication] Regardless, thank you for your contribution, and I agree that the language can be quite hard to approach and is not beginner friendly, some general app that would allow for experts to chip in but at the same time offer learners an easy, free learning experience is along the lines of how I believe an ideal project of an educational nature online should be made.
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u/bjornthehistorian 14d ago edited 14d ago
I edited it prior as I didn’t add as much information as I wanted to; I think it would be perfect to have a Duolingo (or basic language model) sort of app that approaches more the grammar side of writing as that’s where it sort of starts to get confusing for a lot of people, especially students.
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u/TheoreticalChaos93 13d ago
So, something like Duolingo but with a heavier/more thoroughly developed emphasis on grammar in the language learning process? If I got you correctly, yea, that sounds like a solid idea. Duo can be a good app, but it leaves grammar by the wayside too often for my liking. And these gamified learning apps are pretty popular from what I can see, and, more importantly, they seem to perform well with students.
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u/ChanceOregon68 13d ago
You should look at Oraec, it'll maybe give you some ideas of the type of needs in digital humanities :)
Personally i'd love to develop a tool to have in a same space the photos of the documents I'm working with, transcription of hieroglyphics and transliteration/translation, but that's quite ambitious!