Getting Started

Getting Started

This guide is for people who have never written a line of Python — and maybe never opened a "terminal." If you're a working linguist, philologist, or epigrapher who wants to use pyaegean rather than develop it, you're in the right place. We'll go from nothing installed to your first real result. Take it one step at a time; nothing here can break your computer.

Already comfortable with Python and pip? Skip ahead to Installation and the Tutorial.

What pyaegean is (in one breath)

It's a free toolkit, written in the Python language, for working with Ancient Greek and the Aegean scripts (Linear A, Linear B, Cypriot, Cypro-Minoan). You give it Greek text or a Linear A inscription; it gives you back syllables, accents, metre, morphology, statistics, and more. You drive it by writing very short snippets of Python — usually one or two lines — which this documentation gives you ready to copy.

Step 1 — Install Python

pyaegean needs Python 3.10 or newer.

• Windows / macOS: go to python.org/downloads, download the latest installer, and run it.
  • On Windows, tick the box "Add Python to PATH" on the first screen of the installer. This one checkbox saves a lot of grief later.
• Linux: Python is almost certainly already installed. If not, sudo apt install python3 python3-pip python3-venv (Debian/Ubuntu).

To confirm it worked, open a terminal (next step) and type python --version (on macOS/Linux you may need python3 --version). You should see something like Python 3.12.4.

Step 2 — Open a terminal

A "terminal" is just a window where you type commands instead of clicking.

• Windows: press the Start key, type PowerShell, and open it.
• macOS: press ⌘+Space, type Terminal, and open it.
• Linux: open your Terminal app.

You'll see a prompt waiting for input. That's all a terminal is.

Step 3 — Make a project folder with its own environment

A virtual environment is a private sandbox for one project's packages, so pyaegean and its dependencies don't collide with anything else on your machine. It's optional but strongly recommended, and it's two commands.

# make and enter a folder for your Greek work (call it whatever you like)
mkdir greek-work
cd greek-work

# create a virtual environment named ".venv"
python -m venv .venv

Now activate it (you do this each time you come back to the project):

# Windows (PowerShell)
.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

# macOS / Linux
source .venv/bin/activate

Your prompt will now show (.venv) at the start — that means the sandbox is on.

Windows note: if PowerShell refuses to run the activate script with a message about "execution policy," run this once, then try again: Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser RemoteSigned.

Step 4 — Install pyaegean

With the environment active:

pip install pyaegean

That's it — you now have the core library and the full Linear A corpus, working offline with zero third-party dependencies. The heavier Greek NLP backends — treebank lookup, dictionary glossing, and the neural pipeline (the most accurate tagger/parser/lemmatizer, one greek.use_neural_pipeline() call away) — are opt-in: each is fetched to a local cache the first time you turn it on, never bundled. See the Greek NLP page when you want them. If you'd rather not write Python at all, there's also a command-line interface: pip install "pyaegean[cli]".

Check it:

python -c "import aegean; print(aegean.__version__, aegean.registered_scripts())"
# 0.8.0 ['cypriot', 'cyprominoan', 'greek', 'lineara', 'linearb']

Step 5 — Run your first code

There are three ways to actually run Python. For research and exploration, we recommend Jupyter (the third option) — but here are all three.

Option A — the interactive prompt (quickest)

Type python (or python3) and press Enter. You'll get a >>> prompt where you can type one line at a time:

>>> import aegean
>>> corpus = aegean.load("lineara")
>>> len(corpus)
1721

Type exit() to leave.

Option B — a script file

Save the lines below into a file called first.py, then run python first.py:

import aegean
corpus = aegean.load("lineara")
print("Linear A inscriptions:", len(corpus))

Option C — Jupyter (recommended for research)

Jupyter gives you a notebook in your web browser where code, results, tables, and your own notes live together — ideal for exploring a corpus and keeping a record.

pip install jupyterlab
jupyter lab

Your browser opens; click Python 3 to make a new notebook, type a snippet into a cell, and press Shift+Enter to run it. Results (including Greek text and tables) appear right below the cell.

Step 6 — Your first real result

Paste this anywhere you can run Python (a notebook cell is nicest):

from aegean import greek

# Type Greek without a Greek keyboard, using plain ASCII "Beta Code":
greek.betacode_to_unicode("mh=nin")          # 'μῆνιν'

# Break a word into syllables and find its accent:
greek.syllabify("ἄνθρωπος")                  # ['ἄν', 'θρω', 'πος']
greek.accentuation("λόγος").classification    # 'paroxytone'

# Scan the first line of the Odyssey:
greek.scan_hexameter("ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ").pattern
# '—⏑⏑|—⏑⏑|—⏑⏑|—⏑⏑|—⏑⏑|—×'

If you saw that pattern print out, everything is working.

Seeing Greek correctly

Polytonic Greek (with breathings and accents) displays fine in Jupyter and in modern editors like VS Code. If accents look like boxes or question marks in a plain Windows terminal, that's just the terminal font — use Jupyter or an editor, or run chcp 65001 first to switch the terminal to UTF-8. You never need a Greek keyboard: type in Beta Code and convert.

Where to go next

• Tutorial — two complete, guided walkthroughs that answer a real research question, one in Linear A and one in Greek.
• Greek NLP — every Greek function with runnable examples.
• Linear A and Analysis — the Aegean side.
• FAQ & Troubleshooting — if something didn't go to plan.