Domain-Specific Languages for Epigraphy: the Case of ItAnt

Abstract

This contribution illustrates how the definition of a Domain-Specific Language can support the activities of epigraphists and historical linguists. It presents and discusses a method and technological solution, based on Domain-Specific Languages, for facilitating scholars in digitally representing the available knowledge of archaic languages and cultures. This is achieved by increasing the human readability of the encoded data without sacrificing compliance with standard models and formats. The work is framed within the context of an Italian National collaborative research project devoted to the study of the languages and cultures of ancient Italy. The platform developed within this project offers an interesting use case and motivation for experimenting with Domain-Specific Languages for the creation of necessary digital critical editions of the inscriptions relevant for these languages. After explaining the definition process of the DSL grammar, we finally test the applicability of the DSL grammar to five example inscriptions in the Faliscan language.