After a morning outdoors, I’m working away on the Syriac program, and finding how slow software development is!
But I’ve also been thinking a bit about translating Eusebius Chronicon book 1. There are materials in Syriac; Jacob of Edessa continued Eusebius’ text, and fragments of that survive. They’re published in the Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium (CSCO) series by Peeters of Leuven and so can be purchased over the internet. Armenian texts often have some kind of Syriac connection.
The way that the translation needs to be done is to put online a large table in two columns. The left hand column will contain the Latin text, with the German translation underneath, and underneath that any existing English translation (e.g. from Syncellus or the Loeb Manetho); the right-hand the translation, in short 1- or 2-sentence sections, initially blank. Each section will have an edit button. When clicked on this will bring up the section full-screen, with links to the Armenian, the printed version of Petermann, and whatever else is available. This will just be a couple of PHP scripts, of course. Last time this backed onto bunches of text files, but I might use mySQL to store the data this time.
I’d like us to be able to look at the Armenian text, at least. Of course when printed small it’s just squiggles, but, hey, let’s display it in 30 pt! I notice that in Coakley’s 5th edition of Robinson’s Syriac Grammar, the whole text is printed so small that I had to use a magnifying glass to pick out the supra-linear vowels (invented by Mar Jacob of Edessa, as above). But I see no need to make such a mistake.