Perseus wishes to announce the publication of the first digital edition of Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon - the major English lexicon for Classical Arabic, now available under in TEI XML under a Creative Commons License. Perseus has published a number of lexica and lexicographic resources, including Salmoné's Arabic English Lexicon, but Lane's monumental lexicon for Classical Arabic posed particular challenges because of its organization according to roots rather than dictionary words. The resulting complications affected not only the structure of an inherently complex document but the services by which readers can find relevant words. Harry Diakoff of The Alpheios Project, Ltd. created a working TEI XML edition of Lane and integrated it with the Alpheios reading environment tools.
Perseus also wants to highlight the release on Alpheios.net of key texts in Classical Arabic, including Book of Songs, Arabian Nights, Arabic Reading Lessons, The Autobiography Of The Constantinopolitan Story-Teller, Selection from the Annals of Tabari, Selections from Arabic geographical literature and Voyages D'Ibn Batutah. We wish to thank the Alpheios Project, Ltd. and Harry Diakoff, working with Bridget Almas and Zachary Himes (Tufts Class of 14).
September 12, 2011