The First Three Lines of Dante's Inferno: A Demonstration of SLEXIL

ELAN from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics is a standard and well-supported desktop application for annotating audio and video. SLEXIL creates an interactive web page from ELAN's XML output: the text scrolls as the recording plays; single-line mode is invoked by clicking on any line number button. Other controls are provided - for playback speed, font size and tier visibility.

Our python code performs the transformation from ELAN. Alternatively the data may be entered in a simple YAML file.

We captured Roberto Benigni's audio from youtube. Translation and morphemic analysis are courtesy of the University of Alberta Department of Linguistics.

More elaborate presentations are possible. For instance, personal or community annotation of lines, words and morphemes, linked into the main text, can be useful for further study. For more information, contact Paul Shannon.

Dante's Inferno
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
en=il
mezz–o
de=il
cammin–Ø
di
nostr–a
vit–a
in=def:masc:sg
middle–masc:sg
of=def:masc:sg
journey–masc:sg
of
our–fem:sg
life–fem
Midway upon the journey of our life
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
mi
ritrov–ai
per
una
selv–a
oscur–a
I:dat
found–1sg:indef:rem:past
for
indef:fem:sg
forest–fem
dark–fem:sg
I found myself within a forest dark
ché la diritta via era smarrita.
ché
la
diritt–a
vi–a
era
smarr–it–a
that
def:fem:sg
straight–fem:sg
path–fem
be:3sg:impf
lose–partic–fem:sg
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.