The Digital Philological-Etymological Dictionary of the Minor Anatolian Corpus Languages (eDiAna) came into being as a cooperative project sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinshaft (HA 3372/7-1 und HA 3372/7-3, MI 1409/3-1 und MI 1409/3-3, RI 1730/7-1 und RI 1730/7-3). Its goal is to provide the first exhaustive lexical assessment of the entire corpus of the lesser attested ancient Anatolian languages, i.e. Luwian (in cuneiform and hieroglyphic transmission), Lycian (A and B), Carian, Lydian, Palaic, Sidetic, and Pisidian. This includes the philological documentation of synchronic word usage as well as the etymological component, linking the lexical stock of the languages mentioned above to that of Hittite and the other Indo-European languages. The Digital Philological-Etymological Dictionary of the Minor Language Corpora of Ancient Anatolia is intended to serve as a fundamental reference tool for Hittitology and for Ancient Anatolian and Ancient Near Eastern Studies as well as for Indo-Europeanists. The complete dictionary is available online and its use is free of charge.

The main structural unit of the eDiAna project is the lemma. Most synchronic dictionary lemmata are headed by specific Anatolian lexemes and have a uniform structure. The general information about the textual transmission of a lexeme is followed by the list of its paradigmatic forms with attestations, survey of its special graphic features (where applicable), semantic discussion, list of derivatives, discussion of stem formation, and finally internal reconstruction (where applicable). The synchronic lemmata of the derivatives (including compounds) are linked to the base lemmata and vice versa. The diachronic lemmata (always headed by Proto-Anatolian or dialectal Anatolian reconstructions with asterisks) represent collections of etymologically related synchronic lemmata, which in addition are endowed with the discussion of their comparative reconstruction, Hittite cognates, and further Indo-European etymologies (where available). The Indo-European etymological sections feature the lists of cognates and subsections devoted to the semantic and morphological reconstruction. The synchronic lemmata are linked to their umbrella diachronic lemmata, and vice versa.

The Dictionary, Corpus and Literature interfaces can be independently accessed from the main menu (see the upper ribbon). The Dictionary interface, which grants access to the core of eDiAna, features a variety of lemma search options. Those already familiar with the ID number of a particular lemma can simply type it in. Alternatively, one can search for the lexemes constituting headwords with prompts from the dictionary. Finally, it is possible to select a lemma from a lexical list of a particular language. Additional options are searching for specific word-forms and full-text search. The distinct peculiarity of the present dictionary is its corpus-based character: all the Hieroglyphic Luwian, Lycian (A and B), Carian, Sidetic and Pisidian forms listed in the lemmata are linked to their contextual attestations in the corpora (the Cuneiform Luwian and Palaic lemmata are not, because the respective corpora are developed within the framework of other projects). At the same time, the Corpus interface provides a direct way of searching and browsing through the eDiAna corpora. Thus, it is possible to select inscriptions from the list of their names (sigla) and see their full texts, where all the forms are glossed and annotated for their morphological features. Furthermore, it is possible to search the language corpora for lemmata, translations, and grammatical features. Another special feature of the dictionary is the interactive bibliography: each bibliographic reference is linked to the lemmata where it has been used. It is possible to search for bibliographic entries and trace their impact on the dictionary via the Literature interface.

The dictionary has four editors: Olav Hackstein (Munich), Jared Miller (Munich), Elisabeth Rieken (Marburg), and Ilya Yakubovich (Moscow – Marburg). The first three editors led the three modules of the eDiAna project, responsible for the Indo-European reconstruction, Cuneiform Luwian / Carian / Sidetic languages, and the other languages covered by the project respectively. The fourth editor coordinated the work on the corpora and their integration into the dictionary. A number of other linguists and philologists acted as members of the eDiAna project and wrote lemmata for the dictionary (for details, see under Team). The role of the editors was limited to designing the architecture of the dictionary (in cooperation with the Digital Development Module) and moderating the discussion of linguistic conventions (such as transliterations). All the sections of each lemma bear sigla indicating their respective authors, and individual project members (including the editors) retain full responsibility for the content of their signed texts. We encourage the citation of individual authors in connection with their lemmata, while the editors should only be mentioned if the dictionary is cited as a whole (cf. the precise citation Guidelines). In many instances, the original discoveries made in the course of the project and cross-referenced in the lemmata are presented in more detail in the separate publications by the project members. In such instances, the citation of the original sources remains preferable. Also, the updated corpus is not citable as such because it is based on the eDiAna lemmata, which may have been written by different authors. Instead, the lemmata themselves should be cited.

The first stage of the eDiAna project started in November 2014 and ended in October 2017. Its results included the initial form of the interface (previous version), the preparation of all the corpora and a limited number of lemmata. The second stage began in October 2018, continues until now, and focuses on lemma production and the elaboration of the interface. It is assumed that the project will officially end in June 2022, but lemmata will continue to be published regularly beyond this point. For the time being, one can access an intermediate portion of the dictionary, which still misses some of the planned lemmata and the updated versions of the corresponding corpora. The readings and grammatical interpretations of individual forms, their assignment to lexemes, and even lexical representations may undergo changes. The updated corpora will be released successively, once the synchronic dictionary of a given language is complete. Yet, given that lemmatization involves original research in the context of our project and thus leaves room for disagreement, the earlier versions of the text corpora and lemmata will be archived and can be retrieved for comparison if needed.