The VedaWeb Project

This DFG-funded project provides a web-based, open-access platform in order to facilitate linguistic research on Old Indic texts. The text corpus is made available in a digitally accessible as well as morphologically and metrically annotated form, searchable for lexicographic and corpus-linguistic criteria. VedaWeb is part of the Cologne South Asian Languages and Texts (C-SALT).

In the first phase of the project (VedaWeb, 2017-2020) the basic concept of the platform was developed and a first instance went online. The pilot text this application is working with is the Rigveda. It’s linked to the dictionaries available at Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries via the C-SALT APIs for Sanskrit Dictionaries and features morphological annotations of the Rigveda that were carried out at the Universität Zürich (UZH) and made available for the project. The source code of the existing VedaWeb platform application is open-sourced via a public GitHub repository. There is also an OpenAPI 3 schema of the exposed API for any interested users with a technical background.

In the current, second phase of the project (VedaWeb 2.0, 2022-2025), the platform application is being rebuilt from scratch to become a reusable collaborative research platform for texts of different kinds. The VedaWeb platform will be the first public instance of this application working with a variety of Old Indic texts. The data composed, revised and processed in this second phase include audio recordings of recitations of the Rigveda that will be integrated into the platform as well as other texts such as the Atharvaveda.

‣ Open VedaWeb Platform

Publications

The following list contains papers, talks and presentations that were produced in the context of the VedaWeb project.

Papers

Transforming the Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries into Ontolex-Lemon [pdf]

Francisco Mondaca & Felix Rau (2020); In: Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Linked Data in Linguistics: Building Tools and Infrastructure at LREC 2020. 11–16 May 2020. Marseille, France. 11-14

It Takes a Village: Co-developing VedaWeb, a Digital Research Platform for Old Indo-Aryan Texts [pdf]

Börge Kiss, Daniel Kölligan, Francisco Mondaca, Claes Neuefeind, Uta Reinöhl & Patrick Sahle (2019); In Steven Krauwer & Darja Fišer (eds.), TwinTalks at DHN 2019 – Understanding Collaboration in Digital Humanities.

Introducing Kosh, a Framework for Creating and Maintaining APIs for Lexical Data [pdf]

Francisco Mondaca, Philip Schildkamp & Felix Rau (2019); In: Electronic Lexicography in the 21st Century. Proceedings of the eLex 2019 Conference, Sintra, Portugal. Brno: Lexical Computing CZ, s.r.o., 907–21.

Conference Presentations

Creating a collaborative research platform for Vedic Sanskrit texts [pdf]

Fischer, A., Kiss, B., Casaretto, A., Kölligan, D., Korobzow, N., Neuefeind, C., Reinöhl, U., Sahle, P. (2023, June 30). Creating a collaborative research platform for Vedic Sanskrit texts. Digital Humanities 2023. Collaboration as Opportunity (DH2023), Graz, Austria. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8107794

C-SALT APIs - Connecting and Exposing Heterogeneous Language Resources

Mondaca, F., Rau, F., Neuefeind, C., Kiss, B., Kölligan, D., Reinöhl, U., Sahle, P. (2019); To Appear in: Book of Abstracts of the Digital Humanities Conference 2019 (DH2019). Utrecht, Netherlands. 09.07-12-07.2019.

VedaWeb – on the Role of Annotations in Analyzing Ancient Indo-Aryan Texts

Kölligan, D., Neuefeind, C., Kiss, B., Mondaca, F., Reinöhl, U., Sahle, P. (2019); To Appear in: Proceedings of the Historical Corpora and Variation Conference (HiCoV). Cagliari, Italy. 4.04-05.04.2019.

It Takes a Village: Co-developing VedaWeb, a Digital Research Platform for Old Indo-Aryan Texts

Kiss, B., Kölligan, D., Mondaca, F., Neuefeind, C., Reinöhl, U., Sahle, P. (2019); To Appear in: Workshop Proceedings. Twin Talks: Understanding Collaboration in DH. Fourth Digital Humanities Conference in the Nordic Countries 2019 (DHN2019). Copenhagen, Denmark. 05.03.2019.

Poster Presentations

VedaWeb – A Web-based Platform for Ancient Indo-Aryan Texts

Kiss, B., Kölligan, D., Mondaca, F., Neuefeind, C., Reinöhl, U., Sahle, P. (2018); First European Association for Digital Humanities Conference (EADH 2018 - Data in Digital Humanities). Galway, Ireland 7.12–09.12.2018.

C-SALT APIs for Sanskrit Dictionaries: A Novel Approach for Accessing Digital Lexical Resources Online [pdf]

Mondaca, F. (2018); Workshop on eLexicography: Between Digital Humanities and Artificial Intelligence. Co-located with EADH 2018 - Data in Digital Humanities. Galway, Ireland. 06.012.2018

VedaWeb – eine webbasierte Plattform für die Erforschung altindischer Texte

Reinöhl, U., Kölligan, D., Kiss, B., Mondaca, F., Neuefeind, C., Sahle, P. (2018); In: Book of Abstracts der 5. Jahrestagung der Digital Humanities im deutschsprachigen Raum (DHd 2018), Köln 26.2–2.3.2018, pp. 485–486.

Colloquia

Más allá de la digitalización: El rol del acceso a información lexicográfica en Internet [pdf]

Mondaca, F. (08.04.2019); Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile - Instituto de Literatura y Ciencias del Lenguaje (ILCL)

Introducing VedaWeb

Kiss, B., Mondaca, F. (11.12.2018); University of Cologne, CCeH Montalk

Projektvorstellung: VedaWeb

Kiss, B., Kölligan, D. Reinöhl, U. (07.12.2018); University of Cologne, Department of Linguistics

Introducing C-SALT: Cologne South Asian Languages and Texts

Mondaca, F., Rau, F. (11.07.2018); University of Cologne, Kolloquium zu aktuellen Forschungsthemen der Digital Humanities

Workshops

VedaWeb

University of Cologne, Department of Linguistics (04.05.2018); Participants: Dr. Katrin Einicke (University of Halle), Dr. Dieter Gunkel (University of Richmond), PD Dr. Oliver Hellwig (Heidelberg University, University of Stuttgart), M.A. Börge Kiss (University of Cologne), PD Dr. Daniel Kölligan (University of Cologne), M.A. Francisco Mondaca (University of Cologne), Dr. Claes Neuefeind (University of Cologne), Dr. Uta Reinöhl (University of Cologne), Prof. Dr. Kevin Ryan (Harvard University), Apl. Prof. Dr. Patrick Sahle (University of Cologne), Dr. Salvatore Scarlata (University of Zurich), Prof. Dr. Paul Widmer (University of Zurich)