The Program of Cairo University's International Conference on Literary Criticism

Here is the program of  Cairo University's International Conference on Literary Criticism to be held in the Department of Greek and Latin from the 2nd-3rd of March 2017 in Arabic and English.

Classical Papers' new cover to a new issue (2017)

Classical papers is the peer-reviewed journal of the Greek and Latin department in Cairo University. It contains contributions not only from Egyptian classicist, but also from international classicists all over the world. The language of the journal is either Arabic or any other European language of the field Classics (i.e. French, Italian, German or Spanish).

Now it has a new cover to a new issue. The 13th volume (2017) is dedicated to Prof. Dr. Yehia Abdel-Allah. The chief-editor of the journal is the head of the department, Prof. Dr. Ali Abdeltawab.

Google Machine Translation

[Retrieved https://research.google.com/on 25.2.2017]

Machine Translation

Machine Translation is a great example of how cutting edge research and world class infrastructure come together at Google. We focus our research efforts towards developing statistical translation techniques that improve with more data and generalize well to new languages. Our large scale computing infrastructure allows us to rapidly experiment with new models trained on web-scale data to significantly improve translation quality. This research backs the translations served at translate.google.com, allowing our users to translate text, web pages and even speech. Deployed within a wide range of Google services like GMail, Books, Android and web search, Google Translate is a high impact, research driven product that bridges the language barrier and makes it possible to explore the multilingual web in 90 languages. Exciting research challenges abound as we pursue human quality translation and develop machine translation systems for new languages.

43 Publications

Neural Machine Translation

[Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.08144 on 25.02.2017]

Google's Neural Machine Translation System: Bridging the Gap between Human and Machine Translation
Yonghui Wu, Mike Schuster, Zhifeng Chen, Quoc V. Le, Mohammad Norouzi, Wolfgang Macherey, Maxim Krikun, Yuan Cao, Qin Gao, Klaus Macherey, Jeff Klingner, Apurva Shah, Melvin Johnson, Xiaobing Liu, Łukasz Kaiser, Stephan Gouws, Yoshikiyo Kato, Taku Kudo, Hideto Kazawa, Keith Stevens, George Kurian, Nishant Patil, Wei Wang, Cliff Young, Jason Smith, Jason Riesa, Alex Rudnick, Oriol Vinyals, Greg Corrado, Macduff Hughes, Jeffrey Dean
(Submitted on 26 Sep 2016 (v1), last revised 8 Oct 2016 (this version, v2))
Neural Machine Translation (NMT) is an end-to-end learning approach for automated translation, with the potential to overcome many of the weaknesses of conventional phrase-based translation systems. Unfortunately, NMT systems are known to be computationally expensive both in training and in translation inference. Also, most NMT systems have difficulty with rare words. These issues have hindered NMT's use in practical deployments and services, where both accuracy and speed are essential. In this work, we present GNMT, Google's Neural Machine Translation system, which attempts to address many of these issues. Our model consists of a deep LSTM network with 8 encoder and 8 decoder layers using attention and residual connections. To improve parallelism and therefore decrease training time, our attention mechanism connects the bottom layer of the decoder to the top layer of the encoder. To accelerate the final translation speed, we employ low-precision arithmetic during inference computations. To improve handling of rare words, we divide words into a limited set of common sub-word units ("wordpieces") for both input and output. This method provides a good balance between the flexibility of "character"-delimited models and the efficiency of "word"-delimited models, naturally handles translation of rare words, and ultimately improves the overall accuracy of the system. Our beam search technique employs a length-normalization procedure and uses a coverage penalty, which encourages generation of an output sentence that is most likely to cover all the words in the source sentence. On the WMT'14 English-to-French and English-to-German benchmarks, GNMT achieves competitive results to state-of-the-art. Using a human side-by-side evaluation on a set of isolated simple sentences, it reduces translation errors by an average of 60% compared to Google's phrase-based production system.

Subjects:Computation and Language (cs.CL); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Learning (cs.LG)
Cite as:arXiv:1609.08144 [cs.CL]
(or arXiv:1609.08144v2 [cs.CL] for this version)
Submission history
From: Mike Schuster [view email]
[v1] Mon, 26 Sep 2016 19:59:55 GMT (969kb,D)
[v2] Sat, 8 Oct 2016 19:10:41 GMT (968kb,D)
Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)
Link back to: arXiv, form interface, contact.

The Classical Language Toolkit (CLTK)

Retrieved from the website [22.02.2017]

http://cltk.org/

The Classical Language Toolkit (CLTK) offers natural language processing (NLP) support for the languages of Ancient, Classical, and Medieval Eurasia. Greek and Latin functionality are currently most complete.

Goals

• compile analysis-friendly corpora;
• collect and generate linguistic data;
• act as a free and open platform for generating scientific research.

Academic Advisors

• Neil Coffee, University at Buffalo (Associate Professor of Classics); Tesserae (Principal Investigator)
• Gregory Crane, Universität Leipzig (Humboldt Chair of Digital Humanities), Tufts University (Professor of Classics); Perseus (Editor–in–Chief) and Open Philology (Director)
• Peter Meineck, New York University (Associate Professor of Classics); Aquila Theatre (Founder), Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives (Founder, Director)
• Leonard Muellner, Brandeis University (Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies); Center for Hellenic Studies (Director of Publications, Information Technology and Libraries)

Hunayn b. Ishaq - ܚܘܢܝܢ ܒܪ ܐܝܣܚܩ(808 - 873)

http://syriaca.org/person/542
  
Identity from syriaca.org

James E. Walters et al., “Hunayn b. Ishaq — ܚܘܢܝܢ ܒܪ ܐܝܣܚܩ ” in A Guide to Syriac Authors, eds. David A. Michelson and Nathan P. Gibson, entry published August 17, 2016, Syriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portal, ed. David A. Michelson. http://syriaca.org/person/542.

"Physician, philosopher, theologian, and translator. His full name is Abū Zayd Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq b. Sulaymān b. Ayyūb al-ʿIbādī, and he was known in medieval Europe as Johannitius.”

 

Syriaca.org

From the website of the project [retrieved 22.2.2017] 

 

What is Syriaca.org?

Syriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portal is a digital project for the study of Syriac literature, culture, and history. Today, a number of heritage communities around the world have linguistic, religious or cultural identities with roots in Syriac language and culture. Syriaca.org exists to document and preserve these Syriac cultural heritages. The online tools published by Syriaca.org are intended for use by a wide audience including researchers and students, members of Syriac heritage communities and the interested general public. In order to meet the diverse needs of users, the design of Syriaca.org is inherently collaborative and fluid.

The primary function of Syriaca.org is to be a reference hub for digitally linking research findings. Syriaca.org's publications compile and classify core data for the study of Syriac sources, offer the scholarly community digital tools for freely disseminating that data, and facilitate further research through the creation of shared digital tools and infrastructure.

Illicit Trade in Papyri: How It Works?

ِArrested in Alexandria: Report with images (see below) on 28/1/2015 from  Al Arabiya website here: https://tinyurl.com/h27fp9c

Three golden ushabti  !

A mummy !

More ushabti 

A bust

Coins also !

Illicit Trade in Papyri: How It Works?

I have read a lot about the illicit trade in papyri, but I have never explored it further. In this series of posts, I will gather information as much as I can from what is reported in the Egyptian (Arabic) newspapers.

I will not try to comment or translate any articles. I will just state the date of publishing the report(s) as well as the name of the journals. I will of course read every detail in the report. I hope in this way, I will, at the end, have a clearer picture of how these artefacts are transferred from Egypt to its final destination(s) either in Europe or in USA. 

The first report, I post here, appeared in in Alwatan (The home country) newspaper on 15/4/2016. It is reported that the Egyptian police has been able to arrest an antiquities dealer, who has stored 9000 pieces (sic !) in his house in the district of Ain Shams. Papyri and manuscripts are said to be found among these artefacts. The artefacts is said to come from Upper Egypt.

Here is the link to the report: http://www.elwatannews.com/news/details/1097009

Anastas Al-Karmali ( the Carmelite) on Youtube

From Wikpedia:

Anastas Al-Karmali (Arabic: أنستاس الكرملي‎‎), literally Anastas the Carmelite aka Père Anastase-Marie de Saint-Élie (5 August 1866 – January 7, 1947) was a Lebanese Christian priest, most famed for his contributions to the field of Arabic linguistics.

His biography in Youtube:

DAMOS: Mycenaean Texts developed by Oslo Universiy

damos

OPES of Oslo University

OPES

Manchester's PhD Funding Opportunities in Classics & Ancient Historyمنحة دكتوراة فى علم البردي

منحة دكتوراة فى علم البردي من جامعة مانشستير.

ذكرت الزميلة العزيزة روبرتا ماتزا فى رسالة أن هناك منح للدكتوراة مقدمة من جامعة مانشستير لمن يرغب فى الدراسة هناك. التفاصيل فى رسالتها فى الأسفل.

Posted in papylist on December 2, 2016 by Roberta Mazza.

PhD opportunities at Manchester.

I would like to underline the possibility to apply for projects in Papyrology and Graeco-Roman Egypt, especially through the North West Consortium Doctoral Training (see details below), in view of the different experts and resources, including papyri and museum collections, available in Manchester and Liverpool.

With best wishes,

Roberta

---

From: Classicists [CLASSICISTS@liverpool.ac.uk] on behalf of Polly Low [Polly.Low@manchester.ac.uk]
Sent: 02 December 2016 09:39
To: CLASSICISTS@liverpool.ac.uk
Subject: PhD Funding Opportunities in Classics & Ancient History, University of Manchester

PhD Funding Opportunities in Classics and Ancient History at Manchester 2017-18

PhD study in Classics & Ancient History at Manchester

A PhD in Classics and Ancient History at Manchester offers unrivalled opportunities to work with world class researchers in one of the UK’s most innovative graduate research environments. The research of our academic staff and PhD students covers a wide range across Greek and Roman history, Classical literature and its reception, ancient (especially Greek) philosophy, and Classical Philology and Linguistics.  We have particular strengths in a number of areas, including the core fields of Greek and Latin literature and Greek and Roman history and specialisms such as ancient epistolography (Greek and Latin), Greek epigraphy, Roman social history and ancient medicine and its reception. As a Manchester PhD student you will be a member of a vibrant research community, participating in the departmental research culture, seminars and workshop activities, and master classes with international scholars, and able to take advantage of our close contacts with other researchers in the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures and the John Rylands Research Institute.

Classics and Ancient History at Manchester is a member of the Graduate School, a school-wide space with dedicated research skills training, careers opportunities, graduate reading groups, conference and master classes for PhD students.

Funding for Classics & Ancient History PhD at Manchester

We invite applications from well-qualified students for the following PhD funding opportunities to start in September 2018.  Please note that applicants to any of these competitions must also have applied (separately) for a place on our PhD programme, by Friday 20 January 2017.  Further information on all of these awards, and details on how to apply for them, can be found on our Postgraduate Research Funding page.  The deadline for application for all awards is Friday 10 February 2017.

• AHRC studentships through the North-West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NWC DTP; see the North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership). Please note that this scheme allows for joint supervision between institutions which are members of the relevant 'pathway' in the consortium: members of the Classics & Ancient History pathway are the University of Liverpool, Manchester Metropolitan University, and the University of Manchester. If you would like to explore this option, please contact, in the first instance, the institution at which you plan to base your PhD.

• President’s Doctoral Scholarships: for Home/EU/International tuition fees, plus a maintenance stipend (equivalent to the RCUK stipend).

• School awards: for Home/EU/International tuition fees, plus a maintenance stipend (equivalent to the RCUK stipend).

• The Department of Classics & Ancient History is also pleased to invite applications for the Lees Scholarship, for PhD research in the field of Latin (including literary, historical, philosophical and linguistic topics); this award covers Home/EU tuition fees for up to three years.

Potential applicants to our PhD programme should consult their prospective supervisor as soon as possible, or contact our Postgraduate Research Officer (polly.low@manchester.ac.uk), who is always happy to discuss potential applications, to answer specific queries about the application process, and to arrange visits to the Department.

Further information on application to the PhD Programme can be found on our How to Apply Postgraduate Research page

For further information on funding, please see:

• Postgraduate funding (main University website with non-subject specific funding opportunities)
• Funding for postgraduate research students in SALC (School of Arts, Languages and Cultures funding opportunities)

Multilingualism in the Graeco-Roman Worlds, ed. by Alex Mullen and Patrick James, Cambridge University Press 2012

Through words and images employed both by individuals and by a range of communities across the Graeco-Roman worlds, this book explores the complexity of multilingual representations of identity. Starting with the advent of literacy in the Mediterranean, it encompasses not just the Greek and Roman empires but also the transformation of the Graeco-Roman world under Islam and within the medieval mind. By treating a range of materials, contexts, languages, and temporal and political boundaries, the contributors consider points of cross-cultural similarity and difference and the changing linguistic landscape of East and West from antiquity into the medieval period. Insights from contemporary multilingualism theory and interdisciplinary perspectives are employed throughout to exploit the material fully.

For more see the publisher website: http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9781139012775

Greek Language and Education Under Early Islam, Maria Mavroudi 2014

A must read and online available thorough the website of the author herself on academia.edu

1- Maria Mavroudi, “Greek Language and Education Under Early Islam,” in Islamic Cultures, Islamic Contexts: Essays in Honor of Professor Patricia Crone, eds. Behnam Sadeghi, Asad Q. Ahmed, Robert Hoyland, Adam Silverstein (Leiden: E. J. Brill 2014), 295-342.

Manuscript of Sughrat (Socrates) belongs to a 13th century Seljuk illustrator. It is currently kept at Topkapi Palace Library, Istanbul, Turkey

Kitto's the Greeks (1951) into Arabic

In 1962, Kitto's the Greeks was translated into Arabic by Mohamd S. Khafaga of Cairo University. 

The Greeks is a 1951 non-fiction book on classical Greece by University of Bristol professor and translator H. D. F. Kitto. 

Two New Editions of the Arabic Translation of Aristotle's Politics

The Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies has recently published a new edition of  Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed 's(15 January 1872 – 5 March 1963) translation of Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire's Politique d'Aristote (Paris, 1874). In addition to this, there is a direct translation from Greek into Arabic. This is the translation done by Augstin Baraba (1981-1917) and published in Beirut in 1957.  A new edition of this direct translation has been also recently in 2012 published by the Arabic Organization of Translation. See all book covers below.

Nicomachean Ethics from the French (of Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire, Morale d'Aristote 1856) into Arabic

Digging in the Internet, I found the Arabic translation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics available to Egyptian readership in 1914. The translation is done by the anti-colonial activist and the first director of Cairo University, Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed (15 January 1872 – 5 March 1963). It is not a direct translation from Greek, but through an intermediate language, French. Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed translated the French translation done by Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire (19 August 1805 – 24 November 1895) the French philosopher and statesman. The original French book, published in Paris in 1856, can be downloaded from Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/moraledaristote00arisuoft. It is to be noted that the same translator has translated  Aristotle's de Generatione et Corruptione into Arabic from the French of Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire. See my post about this translation here:http://classicsinarabic.blogspot.com.eg/2014/11/de-generatione-et-corruptione-or-into.html.

Βάτραχοι (The frogs) of Aristophanes into Arabic by Abdelmoety Sharawy (2011)

Abdel Moaty Sharawy of Cairo University has translated Βάτραχοι (The frogs) of Aristophanes into Arabic. The translation was published in March 2012 in the international theater's series of  the Kuwaiti National Council of Culture, Arts and Literature (KNCCAL).

The Frogs of Aristophanes is not translated into Arabic, but it is performed on the stage by famous Egyptian actors and recorder for the national Radio. See my post about this performance on July 31, 2014 in this blog (http://classicsinarabic.blogspot.com.eg/2014/07/of-aristophanes-performed-in-arabic.html), where you can find also the link to the audio file, if you want to listen to it in Arabic.

H. Idris Bell's Egypt, from Alexander the Great to the Arab conquest (1948, Oxford, at the Clarendon Press) into Arabic

Whenever I dig deeper in the Internet, I find lots of interesting translations of classical books of Greco-Roman Studies into Arabic. This time I have found the Arabic translation of H. Idris Bell's Egypt, from Alexander the Great to the Arab conquest:  a study in the diffusion and decay of Hellenism : being the Gregynog lectures for 1946 (1948, Oxford, at the Clarendon Press). Zaki Aly, the late Prof. of Ancient History in Cairo University, has done the translation for Dar Almaref publishing house. In which year this translation has appeared, I can not tell. Here is a link to the original English in Archive.org: https://archive.org/stream/bell_egypt_1948#page/n0/mode/1up . Below is the book cover of the translation and the content.