IBIRC Press · Scholarly publishing
AI and the Ancient Languages of Iraq
Learning, Decipherment and Digital Philology
Concept cover · AI-generated illustration, not a documentary image of an identified artefact.
الذكاء الاصطناعي ولغات العراق القديمة: التعلّم وفكّ النصوص والفقه اللغوي الرقمي
About the proposed volume
A proposed research-led edited volume exploring how artificial intelligence can support the study and learning of Sumerian and Akkadian, with carefully scoped comparative work on other historical languages of Iraq. It brings language pedagogy into dialogue with Assyriology, computational linguistics and digital heritage.
Intended readership: Researchers and postgraduate readers in Assyriology, applied linguistics, language education, AI and digital humanities.
Proposed research approach
Contributions would evaluate tools against expert-annotated material and explicit baselines, document corpus provenance and permissions, and report uncertainty and errors. The volume would distinguish sign recognition, transliteration, translation and language learning as different tasks. Assyrian and Babylonian would be treated within their Akkadian linguistic context rather than conflated with modern languages.
Indicative chapter themes
This is an editorial outline, not a final table of contents or a list of accepted chapters.
- Ancient Iraqi languages, scripts and the history of learning
- Cuneiform corpora: provenance, annotation and ethical access
- Recognising signs and evaluating transliteration systems
- Morphology, lexicons and computational support for reading
- Translation models, uncertainty and expert validation
- AI-assisted learning: feedback, assessment and learner studies
- Low-resource methods, reproducibility and open research materials
- Critical perspectives: cultural stewardship and responsible deployment
Project information
| Publisher | IBIRC Press · Iraqi-British Independent Research Centre |
|---|---|
| Status | Planned project; not published, accepted or available for purchase. |
| Proposed format | Research-led edited scholarly volume. |
| Working language | English; original-language examples with transliteration and translation where appropriate. |
| Editors & contributors | Volume-specific editors and accepted contributors will be announced separately from the Press editorial board. |
| Publication date | To be confirmed after editorial assessment and production planning. |
| ISBN / DOI | An ISBN will be assigned to the published book and a unique DOI registered for every published chapter. Identifiers are not yet assigned. |
| Peer review | Not yet completed. Intended chapter-level external review and volume-level assessment before any acceptance decision. |
| Price, licence & access | To be determined before publication; no preorder or payment is being accepted on this page. |
| Indexing | No indexing or Clarivate acceptance is claimed or guaranteed. |
Expressions of interest
Researchers may send a short outline, their affiliation and a brief scholarly biography to info@ibirc-center.co.uk, using the book title in the subject line. This is an exploratory enquiry, not a formal submission or promise of inclusion. Do not send sensitive research data or third-party copyrighted materials with an initial enquiry.