The MEaning of LAnguage. Digital Grammar of the Greek Taught at Schools in Late Constantinople

Project Information

MELA

Grant agreement ID: 101001328

DOI

10.3030/101001328

EC signature date 9 July 2021

Start date 1 January 2022

End date 31 December 2026

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 999 978,00

EU contribution

€ 1 999 978,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITEIT GENT
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MELA (The MEaning of LAnguage. Digital Grammar of the Greek Taught at Schools in Late Constantinople)

Reporting period: 2023-07-01 to 2024-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

By the second part of the project MELA, besides single articles and communications in workshops and conferences, I expect the implementation of the prototype of the database (so far we have a prototype) and the realization of a broader Database (see the rationale here below).
The Data collected during the funding period will be published in the form of a collected volume, and gradually made accessible in our Database.

The major issues we are addressing are concerned with (1) the sources; (2) the data; (3) their understanding. As far as the sources are concerned, we do not know how many manuscripts transmit textbooks for the teaching of Greek, nor are we aware of what kind of texts is actually hidden in manuscripts. Our first contribution will be to bring some clarity. As far as the data are concerned, we want to discover and make available all the data (manuscript-related, text-related, prosopographical, etc.) that emerge from our studies on the manuscript and textbooks. In doing so, we also expect to pave the way for future projects that also deal with similar data/goals. For example, the solutions we are experimenting with in order to create our graph database will be relevant for any scholar investigating similar issues. Finally, as far as the understanding of our sources, the textbooks, we are developing a method to find, collect, and evaluate the grammatical knowledge of the Byzantines hidden in Byzantine grammar books that makes our findings available to other sources.

Our society will have back at its disposal an important phase of its intellectual history (the teaching of grammar in Byzantium and its implication for the society of the time and Western Europe). In addition, the technical challenges, which we will have overcome, will constitute an opportunity for the progress of other projects involving graph databases, and for any team involved in processing large amounts of data.

The overall objectives are to establish a long-term project at my host institution that will sprout up the seeds sowed by MELA. A rationale of these overall, future objectives will be available on MELA website by mid 2024

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

This is an overview of the major work done so far (links on MELA website):
The realization of the prototype of the database;
Two articles on Planoudes' Dialogue on Grammar (one on the knowledge management, submitted to Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies; the other on the ambiguous syllables, to be submitted to the Byzantinische Zeitschrift);
A paper presented to the annual gathering of OIKOS;
A workshop on Schedography (one of the methods for teaching grammar);

Presentation of MELA in a broader context
Two articles on the Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik (issues 2021 and 2022) on Moschopoulos' comments on Sophocles.
The organization of a Panel at the 48th meeting of the Byzantine Association of North America in November 2022
The organization of a Round Table discussion at the Byzantine Congress in Venice in August 2022

Besides the outcome as outlined in the previous point, and in the point here below, I expect:
An article on Manuel Kalekas
An article on the grammatical knowledge that emerges from Manuel Moschopoulos' Schedography
An article on Planoudes' Manuscripts of Attiksimoi and Dialogue on Grammar
A monograph (critical edition of Planoudes' Attikismoi)
Two book proposal for, respectively, the annotated translations of the letters of Planoudes and Kalekas, to be submitted to Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library.
A PhD thesis on the Grammar of Damaskenos Stoudites and its relationship with the teaching of Grammar of the Byzantine Period.

A beta version of the database for internal and (limited) external use.

Dissemination activities
Besides the initiatives of single team members, I am planning: a paper annual meeting of the Medieval Academy of America this coming March 14–16 at the University of Notre Dame; a paper at the international conference organized by the ERC-Project PURA (Venice May 2024); a panel at the 50th conference of the Byzantine Association of North America (October 2024); two round tables discussion at the next major congress of Byzantine Studies (Vienna 2026); 3 sessions in Leeds (July 2025).
These are contexts in which the audience is constituted by scholars in the fields of classics, medieval and Byzantine studies, and thus represent the best moment for all members of the project to present themselves and the results of the project to a broader audience.

In 2025 (at the beginning of our fourth year), we will initiate Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages, with the scope of more informally and spontaneously sharing information on our activities.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

While examining the manuscripts transmitting any form of textbook for the teaching of grammar (the sources of MELA), we are discovering more and more new texts, and new testimonies of already-known textbooks. Furthermore, we correct current scholarship on textbooks (new attributions, better understanding of the content).

So far, we have been able to contribute to expanding our current knowledge of textbooks (their manuscript testimonies and their content).

Another major progress has been made toward the creation of the textual corpus database, from which we extract the data for MELA's Digital Grammar. Glykys' On Syntax; Moschopoulos' De vocum passionibus; Planoudes' Attikismoi and On the Syntax of Verbs have been entirely translated, while Moschooulos' Schedography and Planoudes' Dialogue on Grammar are about to be fully translated. All these texts are not available in any modern language. Thus, the translation alone is a huge step forward to the full understanding of these texts. Without mentioning that the process of transcribing (in unicode) and translating these texts is the indispensable step toward the realization of MELA Database and Digital Grammar.

At the end of the project, I can expect:
A collective online publication. It is going to be the printed version of MELA's Database of Textbooks and Digital Grammar (see the rationale for its realization here below). FIRST PART As the PI, I will author the introductive chapter on the targets of our scientific project, the research questions and hypotheses, and the methodology followed, and I will also present and discuss the first entries of MELA's Database. SECOND PART My collaborators will publish some of the sources authored by Planoudes, Moschopoulos, and Gregoras, and demonstrate the value of the data we can extrapolate from them. THIRD PART The collected book will also present a catalog of the grammatical manuscripts (case studies based on the manuscript transmitting the texts presented in the second part). FOURTH PART Eventually, the book will publish the grammar of the Greek that emerges from the textbooks presented in the second part, contrasted with the grammar employed in the scripts of some of the authors of textbooks (Planoudes and Kalekas), as well as in Demotic Greek texts (Damaskenos Stoudites). This publication is the introduction to the use of MELA's Database of Textbooks and Digital Grammar.

MELA's Database of Textbooks. Searchable set of textbooks for the teaching of Greek available in the Greek edition alongside the annotated English Translation.
MELA's Digital Grammar: A set of chapters, each devoted to a grammatical topic as it emerged from our sources, whose content is retrievable through a complex series of search options.

Beginning of Planoudes Attikismoi, one of the sources of our Database