NTUA engineering duo (Michalis Veritopoulos & Apostolos Melidis) present their work of utilizing technology and computer science to realize the vision of the late Classics professor, Dimitris Liantinis, of promoting the survival of Modern Greek, the true heir of Homer’s language, through the replacement of the cryptic Greek text with Latin. The key idea is that transcriptions into the Latin script, the most widely used script today (itself a direct descendant of Greek), will facilitate international audiences looking to immerse themselves in the brilliant, archaic language of indigenous feta-lovers, helping them to grasp even the most banal, yet full of ancient wisdom, parole of contemporary Greeks on the web. The technology will be presented, explained and handed over to the audience in the form of a web-browser add-on that will automatically translate Greek script into what Greeks like to - falsely - call greeklish (Greek+English), not realizing that Latin script is also essentially a form of Greek itself.

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Michalis Veritopoulos studies Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the National Technical University of Athens (although his mother would have preferred that he became a doctor). He likes synthesizers and loves to explore the secrets of the Greek language. He hopes to bring the Greek text to the foreground with the use of engineering and computer science, aspiring to be a part of the tradition of the engineers of the ‘Antikythera mechanism’.

 

Apostolos Melidis studies Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at National Technical University of Athens. Although being pressured to become a doctor during childhood, he decided to pursue a career in the field of Computer Science (probably the triggering event of his cyberchondria). The basic reason behind this decision was his epiphany of creating an Ancient Greek programming language based on complex mathematics and linguistics, a still ongoing project. He enjoys music and loves Pontic lyra, which he plays since 3 years old. His dream of making Greek language prominent in the ever evolving field of technology fuels his everyday struggle.