Updating and Renaming

I've been updating the site a bit, but you won't notice most of the changes as a user. The changes are primarily on the back-end of the site to help me manage it more easily and effectively.

One small change you'll notice is that the nickname Numen has been retired. The nickname is now LatLex. I won't change it everywhere -- especially not in the YouTube tutorials and historic blog posts -- but most everywhere else, the deed is done.

If you notice weirdness happening -- that's OK. It's OK. Weird is good. However, if anything is broken, try clearing your cache, your cookies, restarting your browser and restarting your device. If that still doesn't work and you think you've found a bug, let me know. I love squashing bugs. Actually, I don't. I usually just pick them up and put them in the garden. But you know what I meant!

Here's another way of getting in contact with me, in case email is not your thing: Keith on Bluesky

Still Going Strong

LatLex is still going strong. It's been a few years since I posted an update.

This tool continues to get a lot of engagement from the people it was designed for -- people who want to learn Latin and research the vast body of work in Latin literature.

I want to continue to thank all the teachers, students, Classicists, Clergy, Biologists and everyone else -- professionals and amateurs alike. It was not designed by robots or for robots -- and shouldn't be used to teach robots stupid tricks.

Thanks! 

Back up!

Sorry about the downtime! Many thanks go to those kind users who notified me directly.

Annual Hellooooooooooooo!

This website and Latin language tool continues to somewhat peacefully exist, quietly providing service to all the Latin learners in the world. It simply doesn't need much care and feeding, though it is enjoyed by many (including its creator)! 

Nevertheless, every once in a while, it gets an update or two. For instance, today superficies (and related words) got some fixes! 

As always, please enjoy and make good use of it!

DNS Issues!

Stop me if you've heard this one before!

Our host moved us to a new server and the migration has run into some DNS issues. The site is not going down permanently -- it'll be back soon. I will continue to work to make sure it comes back up soon. 

Thanks for your patience and please accept my apologies. 

Ping! & English to Latin Fixed

Yes! This site is still alive and actively maintained. Sorry that there's not much news. It's literally because there's not much of new! 

But... here is one news item. 

Today a kind Latin teacher let me know that the English to Latin page was not working. I fixed it. Sorry about that!

This site is now secured using SSL

Hey everybody! Long time, no read! I know you all are enjoying the site still -- I definitely appreciate the feedback I receive from time to time.

In order to be compliant with new standards of security, I've updated this site's server to use SSL (secure sockets layer). That means you will be redirected from http to https. I've tried to be very careful to make sure everything works correctly, but if something doesn't work, please let me know ASAP. Of course, to help me out in case your browser is simply caching old settings, you first might want to clear your cache and your cookies and maybe even restart your computer.

Happy studying!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yes, this site is still very much alive and kicking -- although it may not appear so from the number of posts on the news page! So here's to another year. Cheers!

English to Latin Downtime

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who so quickly reported problems with the English to Latin section of the website. It's great to know that this tool is important and being utilized.

Second, it should only be down for a short time. It will be back up and running soon.

Thanks for using the site!

Small Server Glitch Stopped Numen for Morning

So there was a small glitch on the server this morning. It was super easy to fix but I didn't have a chance to fix it for a few hours. It should be good now!

Upgraded Server and Site Statistics

This is a post for the technical minded people in the audience.

This site is actually hosted on a cloud service called Amazon EC2. EC2 changes now and again. As they buy new and faster hardware (computers) they tend to decommission the older ones and makes the top tier the new middle tier, and in effect marking down the prices. In addition to this regular upgrade cycle, competitors like Google Compute Engine and Microsoft Azure lower prices to stay competitive and EC2 has to follow suit.

It's because of these upgrade and competition cycles that prices and server specs tend to fluctuate. Since this site has been using the same configuration for about a year now, I decided to check if there's newer, faster, cheaper hardware.

It turns out there is. I was basically able to double the power of the site's hardware. EC2 is great because all it takes is 3 clicks to make the change. The site was down for about 2 minutes all together. So if you noticed an outage, that's probably why.

The upshot of this upgrade is that the site should run noticeably faster and handle noticeably more users. As a matter of fact, usage tends to increase about 30% percent year-over-year. In fact, this has been a great year because the gain has been 34% overall. Check out the image below.

34% year-over-year usage increase

Notice the blip on May 13th and 14th. That's when I accidentally bombed the server. Ooops. Despite that, there was still a 34% gain in usage.

Overall, this is good news. The site is getting more and more popular and hopefully more and more useful. Also, it's getting faster. Thanks for reading and using it. If you have friends who are taking Latin or are interested in Latin, make sure to tell them about Numen. 

Server Outage

Sorry about the server outage. It was a technical mistake on my part -- don't worry, Numen isn't going way. Thanks for all the compliments -- the number of people emailing me really did let me know that Numen is a useful and necessary tool. Please continue to report problems! It really helps me out!

X-Rays Open Secrets Of Ancient Scrolls

NPR has a piece on new techniques for looking into scrolls that were charred and turned into (essentially) lignite in Pompeii during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E.

X-Rays Open Secrets of Ancient Scrolls

I remember when I was in graduate school, we were all very hopeful that someday such technology would exist and be viable. New original texts of Ancient Latin and Greek would be amazing.

One of the most amazing things about this technology is that the texts would indeed be untouched by the hands of monks and scribes during the middle ages. Why does that matter? The Latin and Greek texts we have today are copies of copies of copies. And like all copies, errors have been introduced. In addition to errors, semi-literate monks may have made corrections that were based on incorrect assumptions about Latin in the centuries prior to their births.

Why not simply unroll the scrolls? Because they are essentially ash. Since the discovery of the scrolls in Pompeii, experts have ruined countless scrolls trying to unroll them. At some point, they were essentially locked in a vault in the hopes that someday technology would advance. It would appear that such a day has nearly arrived. 

māccer - A tool for macronizing Latin text

Felipe Vogel, a graduate student at the University of Kentucky, recently shared his "macronizer" with me. One of our joint efforts will be to improve the results of his tool with a fully declined/conjugated word list from Numen.

Check it out here: Māccer - A Tool for Macronizing Latin Text.

Weird errors on Numen? This is how to fix them.

Today I modified the code that Google Analytics uses to keep track of traffic on this site.

That was a major change. Because of the way the internet works, some of Numen's old data might be cached in your browser -- causing weird errors like "AJAX could not be loaded" and other such nonsense.

Fear not -- the fix is easy.

Here are several steps you can take to fix the problem in your web browser:

1. Log out of Numen and log back in. 
2. Close your web browser and reopen it.
3. Reload the Numen page you're on by holding the SHIFT key on your keyboard while clicking the refresh button on your browser's address bar.
4. Reload the Numen page you're on by holding the CTRL key on your keyboard while clicking the refresh button on your browser's address bar.
5. Reload the Numen page you're on by holding BOTH the SHIFT and CTRL keys on your keyboard (at the same time) while clicking the refresh button on your browser's address bar.
6. Clear your web browser's cache and then restart it.
7. Try another web browser (just to see if it's happening there, too).
8. Contact me at admin@latinlexicon.org.

Hopefully this won't affect too many people but if does, I apologize in advance!

Pronoun Paradigms

Many of you know that Numen provides a beta paradigm feature. The paradigms of most nouns, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns are available. Generally, they work very well with a couple of well known exceptions (Greek nouns, certain verbal forms, and some irregular forms).

Once upon a time, the pronouns were working fairly well but not so much recently. Over the past few months there has been an uptick in the number of reports of bad pronoun paradigms. After a thorough review, I must note that all pronoun paradigms were broken. Honestly, I'm not sure how that happened. Nonetheless, I took some corrective action this weekend and fixed most of the pronoun paradigms -- with the exception of the personal pronouns. Those will take a bit more work because as you probably know, personal pronouns are the only nominal forms in Latin that don't have explicit gender (i.e., tu does not code for masculine, feminine, or neuter).

So in the meantime, please feel free to spot-check the paradigms for your favorite pronouns and please feel free to report errors. PS, it's always helpful to cite your source if you believe that a paradigm has an incorrect form. Sources do vary!

Welcome back for Fall 2014

It's that time of year again -- Fall semester has begun! That means this site has begun picking up steam. During summers and other long breaks (spring and the winter holidays mainly), the site takes a sudden downturn while students enjoy their time off. But whenever a new semester starts, visits pick up dramatically. The uptick this year is quite high -- almost 40% over last year.

As the years go by, this site gets better and better. More errors are corrected, more features are added, etc. I'm working on a some new features that I hope will benefit everyone greatly -- not just students but also the Latin academic community as a whole.

Please continue sharing this site with students and teachers of Latin. I love watching the community grow year after year.

Also, please continue marking errors as you come across them. I can't fix every single error in a timely manner, but I'll do my best to get as many as I can. Please keep in mind that some errors are harder than others to fix due to the nature of the computerized database employed here versus the organic nature of a human language like Latin.

In any case, please enjoy your new semester! Good luck!

Numen's Video Tutorials

Some 2nd Conjugation Errors

I'm sure most of our regular visitors have noticed a button to report errors that occur in Latin words. We have a great community here and many of you report errors regularly.

One of those errors recently reported was the verb mereō. It turns out that when the dictionary was originally loaded into the database, a few errors crept in. This is normal and as I find the errors, I correct them.

When I was correcting mereō today, I wondered if it were possible that more 2nd conjugation verbs were erroneous -- often there is a pattern caused by a programming bug or a data encoding error. After running a quick database query, I discovered that there were indeed 20 or so 2nd conjugation verbs that were listed as 1st or 3rd.

The explanation is simple: in the Lewis Elementary dictionary, occasionally the compound verbs are listed without a macron in the infinitive (exempli gratiā, inhaereō). It is so rare that I never programmed an exception to the rule that said "if an infinitive has a macron, make the verb 2nd conjugation."

So needless to say I fixed those 20 verbs. Despite that these errors happen every once in a while, I feel that more than 95% of the words in the database are happily error free. Nevertheless, please do continue reporting errors. Someday I'd like to see this dictionary approach 99%+ error-free entries!

Server Move

You know me pretty well by now if you know that I move the Latin Lexicon server every few months. Hopefully this new home will last for a couple of years.

If you notice anything isn't working, please feel free to contact me at admin@latinlexicon.org.

I should post more news here. It might not be obvious from here, but I'm constantly making updates to the Latin Lexicon -- I fix something like 10 reported errors per week. I also add enhancements and fix bugs (and sometimes add new bugs). If there are any particular features you'd like to see on the site, again feel free to contact me.