Now your iPhone speaks Ancient Greek
This is the 21st century. You don’t need to lug around a 6-pound tome of a dictionary. You don’t need to waste time flipping through pages to find the entry you want, then waste even more time finding the relevant information in the entry. You especially don’t need to ruin your eyes by staring at column after column of teeny-tiny print.
Lexiphanes is fast and simple. Just enter a word in Greek and get results immediately. No more licking your finger to turn the page.
A great recipe: Greek two ways
Lexiphanes is based on the Perseus Project’s transcriptions of two different Greek lexica now in the public domain: the Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek Lexicon and Autenrieth’s Homeric Lexicon. You can use these dictionaries for free through the Perseus Project’s website, but Lexiphanes gives you a friendly, familiar iPhone interface. Plus you don’t need to have Internet access to do lookups. [Monks and hermits, I'm looking at you -- seriously!]
Latin keyboard, Greek text
You can enter text in Lexiphanes one of two ways. The first is to enable your built-in Greek keyboard and use that; the second is to use the old-fashioned Beta Code system for transcribing Greek text using the Latin character set. Instructions on both are provided from within Lexiphanes.
Short definitions
Lexiphanes shows you a “short definition” for most words in case you’re in a hurry and all you need is a gloss. Most are automatically generated from the text of the dictionary, so if you find one that doesn’t look right, help make everyone’s experience better by correcting it. Your corrections will be featured in updates to Lexiphanes.
Bookmarks
If you find yourself going back to the same entries over and over, Lexiphanes lets you bookmark entries and return to them in a hurry.
Numeral Conversion
Lexiphanes converts between Roman and regular (Arabic) numerals. Just type a number in either format into the converter; if it’s recognized Lexiphanes will give you the conversion.




#1 by emily wilson on March 23, 2010 - 8:22 pm
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How do I get it to type final sigma? It always seems to understand s as medial sigma, and I don’t know how I would check out the lsj entry for words that end in sigma. I’ve tried with both american and greek keyboards enabled, to no avail.
#2 by Trav on April 3, 2010 - 2:26 am
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Alas, it does not take full advantage of the Greek keyboard. A
Starting with an uppercase letter will take one to the “a” words; and any accent/breath marks are unrecognized.
#3 by Erik Sageng on May 27, 2010 - 1:05 am
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Lexiphanes is a very fine, valuable app. Is it possible to put the list of Bookmarked entries in alphabetical order?
#4 by Lucian on June 2, 2010 - 9:46 pm
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Love the app and bought Lexidium as well; you did a wonderful job in introducing our “old and dusty” studies to the modern marvels of technology.
@emily wilson: once you have enabled the Greek keyboard, try holding your finger for a few seconds on the s (Σ) and you will get the choice between a “σ” and a “ς”.
Greetings
Lucian.
#5 by
Harry Schmidt on June 5, 2010 - 2:37 pm
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Dear Erik,
Yes, this will be possible in version 3, which will be available in July. Thanks!
#6 by John Orr on June 6, 2010 - 9:10 pm
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Great app! Very useful, and well-designed. Do you have plans to make an iPad version?
#7 by
Harry Schmidt on July 21, 2010 - 1:18 am
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Hi John! Yes, an iPad version is in the works.