Searching for Patterns in Ancient Greek Texts!
  • A tool to help researchers quickly assess various claims regarding stylistic and linguistic patterns in Ancient Greek texts
  • A way for researchers without programming resources to easily search for patterns in Ancient Greek texts
  • An open source web application available for download
WordChorus is a tool specifically designed to find patterns in Ancient Greek texts. Have you ever wondered how many verses in the Iliad begin with a rough breathing? Or how many words in Antigone end in the phoneme group οι, ει or αι? Do you want to count the number of accents in the Argonautica? If so, you have come to the right place! Here are some examples:
  • Search for all the verses in the Iliad that have 5 or more words beginning with a rough breathing. Here is one of the results (Book 10, line 526):

    οἳ δ’ τε δή ῥ’ κανον θι σκοπὸν ʽ´Εκτορος ἔκταν
  • Search for all the verses in the Iliad that have 4 or more words ending in οι. Here is one of the results (Book 5, line 222):

    οἷοι Τρώϊοι ἵπποι ἐπιστάμενοι πεδίοιο
  • The data sets used in Ancient Greek repetition studies are generally not available for re-analysis
  • Research in the area has required programming expertise, limiting the number of contributors to the discussion
  • Existing web applications provide limited text pattern search facilities for Ancient Greek
The WordChorus source code is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0-standalone.html

It is available for download on Bitbucket at:
https://bitbucket.org/hlynam/wordchorus
WordChorus contains XML texts based on the Perseus Digital Library (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu) XML files used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/
Henry Lynam, lynamhf@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Dr. Martine Cuypers, cuypersm@tcd.ie
Department of Classics
Trinity College Dublin