@chiaweilin
Assistante diplômée & doctorante @Université de Lausanne. Historical linguistics, language contact, indigenous grammatical traditions, Christian and Buddhist translations on the Silk Road. Working on Barlaam&Josaphat. https://unil.academia.edu/chiaweilin
In our new article, Zach Butler introduces Xeirographa (www.xeirographa.com), a platform that teaches users how to read Greek manuscripts developed by Jacob Peterson (www.jacobwpeterson.com).
Read more on our website!
🔗 digitalorientalist.com/2026/03/06/x...
მებოძირი
crossing, (w/ გზისა or გზათა) crossroad(s)
Acts of Thekla, ed. Abuladze, 102/56.4-5
მიმოვლიდეს და ეძიებდეს იგინი მებოძირებსა გზისასა და არა ჰპოებდეს
"They kept sending people out, searching the crossroads, but without finding her"
cf. Mt 22:9 for მებოძირები გზათაჲ "crossroads"
Over the years, Soni Wadha, a specialist in the Sindhi language, has written about the archiving and preservation of Sindhi books and documents, as well as reported on conferences and initiatives aimed at bringing language technology to the myriad languages of India.
Links below⬇️
Weekly Georgian Etymology: მტერი mṭeri 'enemy', from Old Georgian ႫႲႤႰႨ mṭeri, from *m-ṭver-i, agentive participle of Kartvelian *ṭwr- break apart, destroy, possible ancient loan of Urartian 𒌅𒌨 tur- destroy. Many languages' words for enemy come from nouns of ill intent.
In our new blog post, Sunayani Bhattacharya explores using Omeka for digital curation as a critical method in teaching Bengali texts. From metadata to visual storytelling, the article offers creative work-arounds for engaging non-Latinate archives from the Global South.
Link below ⬇️
Old Georgian word of the day
წჳმაჲ
"rain" 🌧️
as in Acts of Thekla, ed. Abuladze, 105.14-17
ღრუბელი ცუარითა სავსჱ აგრილობდა მას ზედა, და სეტყუაჲ და წჳმაჲ სასტიკი ზეცით გარდამოვიდოდა
"a cloud full of dew was overshadowing her, with severe hail & rain coming down"
Old Armenian word of the day
շղթայ
"chain"
Acts of Thekla, ed. Calzolari, 297.2-3
մեծաւ ուրախութեամբ համբուրէր զկապանս եւ զշղթայսն զոտիցն եւ զձեռացն Պաւղոսի
"with deep happiness she was kissing the fetters & chains on Paul's feet & hands"
📢 We are welcoming guest submissions!
Our guideline for submissions:
digitalorientalist.com/submit-your-...
We are especially interested in expanding our coverage to Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, Africa, and Sinological studies for any period after 500 CE!
Our new blog post, “Overview of NDL古典籍OCR: The Key to Early Modern Japanese Archives?”, is a guest contribution by Xia-Kang Ziyi, which provides an overview of OCR technology for Japanese kuzushiji and introduces NDLKotenOCR-Lite model.
Read more on our blog!
digitalorientalist.com/2026/02/24/o...
43 δώματά τ᾽ ἀθανάτων· αἳ δ᾽ ἄμβροτον ὄσσαν ἱεῖσαι
/dɔ́ːmatá tatʰanátɔːn haì d ámbro̞to̞n o̞ssan ʰiêːsai/
And the houses of the immortals resound. And sending forth their immortal voice
| – ⏑ ⏑ | – ⏑ ⏑ | – – | – ⏑ ⏑ | – ⏑ ⏑ | – – |
Our new blog post by Michel Wong (@humboldtuni.bsky.social ) is a curated guide to online repositories of Chaghatai Turkic manuscripts and printed texts, covering collections in Central Asia and beyond.
Read more on our blog!
🔗 digitalorientalist.com/2026/02/20/a...
"Thirty Tamili and Prakrit inscriptions reveal 2,000-year-old India-Egypt trade."
Such amazing evidence about this cultural contact!
#Egyptology #AncientBlueSky #ClassicsBlueSky
www.deccanherald.com/india/thirty...
Beginning with her overview article, "African and Oceanian Objects in French Museums," @transcrireada.bsky.social ( @cnrs.fr ) has introduced us to several vital digital humanities initiatives focused on preserving African history and languages, including:
The terrible colleague at UNIL using my name has published a new paper again.👀 I don’t particularly enjoy reading it, nor do I think that it will interest anyone. All errors are solely her responsibility, not mine.
www.academia.edu/164750402/Th...
glorisunglobalnetwork.org/wp-content/u...
Our latest post is an Editor’s Digest of our Middle Eastern Studies publications from February 2025 to February 2026, curated by Maria S. Thomas (@vuamsterdam.bsky.social ).
Read the full articles on our blog!
🔗 digitalorientalist.com/2026/02/17/e...
2025-26 DO Middle Eastern Studies posts⬇️:
We regularly publish overviews of available digital sources in our sub-disciplines. If you're a student or teacher of South Asian, Central Asian, or East Asian languages and civilizations, check out our latest guides:
(links below⬇️)
In our new blog post, @xiaolidh.bsky.social introduces a new series on her AI chatbot designed to support spoken Chinese learning. The tool offers real-time feedback in a low-pressure setting, but human evaluation remains essential. AI enhances learning but doesn’t replace teachers.
Link below⬇️
Barhebraeus in the 13th century on Uyghur script being adapted for Mongolian:
In recent years, Marcije Kurzynski has written four posts for us on LLMs in Chinese studies: from the pitfalls of Chinese tokenization to RAG in university teaching and Transformer-based stylometry of Cantonese writers. He also reflects on global #DH beyond the “China and the West” divide.
Links ⬇️
In our new blog post, James Morris (Waseda University) shares a follow-up to his experiment using DuckDuckGo instead of Google for research purposes. James highlights several advantages of using DuckDuckGo: AI-free research, easy country-switching, fewer advertisement
Linke below⬇️
Over the years, Miyagawa So (University of Tsukuba), one of DO’s most prolific contributors, has written extensively on digital initiatives related to various ancient African languages and scripts, including Demotic, Egyptian Hieratic, Coptic, and Nubian.
Read more on our blog ⬇️
Check out our newsletter for February 2026 !
us14.campaign-archive.com?u=cd5d1b663f...
In addition to our regular blog posts, this issue features the proceedings of the DO’s 2025 conference, “AI and the Digital Humanities.”
Announcements for upcoming #digitalhumanities
events ⬇️
In our new blog post, Brian Tsz Ho Wong showcases how to use the 帝国議会会議録検索システム (Database System for the Minutes of the Imperial Diet) to study modern East Asian history based on his recent article in the Financial History Review.
Read more on our blog:
🔗 digitalorientalist.com/2026/02/06/p...
Over the years, @rohanchn.bsky.social (University of Delhi & @visithmml.bsky.social ) has written a series of technical tutorials guiding us through OCR/HTR tasks: using eScriptorium and Kraken for transcribing Indic scripts, and Aksharamukha for transliterating across 120+ scripts.
Links below⬇️
Read Nabataean!
In our new blog post, Adrien de Jarmy ( @unistra.fr ) and Clarck Junior Membourou Moimecheme ( @sorbonnenouvelle.bsky.social ) introduce the BADR Project “Writing and Memory of the Battle of Badr (7th–21st c.)”, which uses TEI-XML, relational database, and quantitative visualization tools.
Link⬇️
📢 Call for Participation: Transcribathon on Ottoman Arabic Court Registers
Our contributor Ilyes Mechentel (@unibe.ch) is organizing a transcribathon dedicated to Arabic sources. If you are interested, please contact mohamed.mechentel@unibe.ch !
📅 20 Feb 2026
🏛️ University Bern & Online
Link below⬇️
Over the years, Helen Giunaishvili (Ilia State University) has written four posts on the digitization of Georgian and Persian manuscripts preserved at Georgia’s Korneli Kekelidze Georgian National Centre of Manuscripts.
Read more on our blog ⬇️
Our latest blog post by Adrian Plau presents the digitization project of Sinhala and Pali manuscripts at the Wellcome Collection. The project uses TEI for cataloguing and aims to be the Sri Lankan equivalent of Fihrist for Islamicate manuscripts and SAMHiTA for South Asian manuscripts.
Link below⬇️
Advanced #HTR for #Arabic significantly enhances Arabic #codicology. By automating the transcription of diverse scripts it allows us to analyze material features and scribal habits. Also, greater digital legibility means deeper insights into the physical and intellectual history of #manuscript.🔎