4 ms·

Codex documenting Aztec culture now digitized

74 points by diodorus 3y ago

getwiththeprog 3y ago
Links back to https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/ https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/
kzrdude 3y ago
alternate pop sci news item for this https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/digital-florentine-codex-aztec-history https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/digital-florentine-cod...
ftyers 3y ago
The sad thing is that there isn't really anything new here. It's the Anderson and Dibble translation, and some random extra stuff. For 15 years work it's quite a limited contribution. In addition, it's not freely licensed. I'm working on a free/open-source licensed edition with linguistic annotation. If anyone is interested, ask for the link, it's on GitHub.
- asimpletune 3y ago
  Isn't it also the "García Garagarza" Spanish-English translation? Or is that what you mean by some extra stuff.
  - ftyers 3y ago
    Yeah, that's what I mean, e.g. it's mostly existing published stuff. The new stuff is some partial summarisation in Eastern Huasteca Nahuatl, and some spoken audio (by EHN speakers), although, it's unclear what the audio gains. Without training, it's not really intelligible to most speakers of modern varieties.
- belugacat 3y ago
  Link?
  - ftyers 3y ago
    Here is an example of what were producing so far for book 5 "the omens": https://github.com/ftyers/UD_Classical_Nahuatl-FloCo/blob/main/not-to-release/conllu/Book_05_-_The_Omens.conllu https://github.com/ftyers/UD_Classical_Nahuatl-FloCo/blob/ma... The repo is kind of messy, it's mostly me and some students working on it, but we're pretty passionate. Let me know if you'd like to get involved! :)
    - nathancahill 3y ago
      That's really cool. I went deep into epigraphy when I lived in Guatemala and was regularly finding carved pottery in our garden beds. Spent a lot of time annotating paper copies of glyphs. What's the way to view/edit the .conllu files?
      - ftyers 3y ago
        They're generated from a tonne of Python scripts, but feel free to get in contact and I can take you through how it works ! :)
    - ftyers 3y ago
      Note that the annotation is alignable with images of the original manuscript, which are online at the Library of Congress. I.e. https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667850/ https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667850/ The [orig] contains all the original token and line breaks.
- ftyers 3y ago
  It's also available online at UNAM, https://temoa.iib.unam.mx/ https://temoa.iib.unam.mx/ along with a lot of other texts (see pages beginning with CF "Códice Florentino"), e.g. https://temoa.iib.unam.mx/cf_05_v https://temoa.iib.unam.mx/cf_05_v
tastyfreeze 3y ago
It makes me very happy to see ancient texts digitized for the world to see. If only the Spaniards hadn't burned every codex they could get their hands on. There are 12 surviving pre-contact Aztec codexes. The Aztecs produced 480000 sheets of paper annually. That amounts to heaps of records and knowledge that was destroyed.
- ftyers 3y ago
  True, but it's also interesting to see what survived. My wife is a Nahuatl speaker, and some of the stuff in the book on Omens is still part of the culture, e.g. About owls being a sign of death.

74 points by diodorus 3y ago

Links back to https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/ https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/

alternate pop sci news item for this https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/digital-florentine-codex-aztec-history https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/digital-florentine-cod...

ftyers 3y ago

The sad thing is that there isn't really anything new here. It's the Anderson and Dibble translation, and some random extra stuff. For 15 years work it's quite a limited contribution. In addition, it's not freely licensed. I'm working on a free/open-source licensed edition with linguistic annotation. If anyone is interested, ask for the link, it's on GitHub.

asimpletune 3y ago
Isn't it also the "García Garagarza" Spanish-English translation? Or is that what you mean by some extra stuff.
- ftyers 3y ago
  Yeah, that's what I mean, e.g. it's mostly existing published stuff. The new stuff is some partial summarisation in Eastern Huasteca Nahuatl, and some spoken audio (by EHN speakers), although, it's unclear what the audio gains. Without training, it's not really intelligible to most speakers of modern varieties.
belugacat 3y ago
Link?
- ftyers 3y ago
  Here is an example of what were producing so far for book 5 "the omens": https://github.com/ftyers/UD_Classical_Nahuatl-FloCo/blob/main/not-to-release/conllu/Book_05_-_The_Omens.conllu https://github.com/ftyers/UD_Classical_Nahuatl-FloCo/blob/ma... The repo is kind of messy, it's mostly me and some students working on it, but we're pretty passionate. Let me know if you'd like to get involved! :)
  - nathancahill 3y ago
    That's really cool. I went deep into epigraphy when I lived in Guatemala and was regularly finding carved pottery in our garden beds. Spent a lot of time annotating paper copies of glyphs. What's the way to view/edit the .conllu files?
    - ftyers 3y ago
      They're generated from a tonne of Python scripts, but feel free to get in contact and I can take you through how it works ! :)
  - ftyers 3y ago
    Note that the annotation is alignable with images of the original manuscript, which are online at the Library of Congress. I.e. https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667850/ https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667850/ The [orig] contains all the original token and line breaks.
ftyers 3y ago
It's also available online at UNAM, https://temoa.iib.unam.mx/ https://temoa.iib.unam.mx/ along with a lot of other texts (see pages beginning with CF "Códice Florentino"), e.g. https://temoa.iib.unam.mx/cf_05_v https://temoa.iib.unam.mx/cf_05_v

tastyfreeze 3y ago

It makes me very happy to see ancient texts digitized for the world to see. If only the Spaniards hadn't burned every codex they could get their hands on. There are 12 surviving pre-contact Aztec codexes. The Aztecs produced 480000 sheets of paper annually. That amounts to heaps of records and knowledge that was destroyed.

ftyers 3y ago
True, but it's also interesting to see what survived. My wife is a Nahuatl speaker, and some of the stuff in the book on Omens is still part of the culture, e.g. About owls being a sign of death.