About
A tool for reconnecting with European literary heritage.
A chrestomathy (from Greek χρηστομάθεια, a desire for learning) is a selection of passages gathered to help people study a language. Chrestomathia is one for the present day: guided learning with choices according to topic and text, an in-built dictionary function with the ability to add unknown words to study lists, and to top it all off, the vocabulary lists we are compiling are ranked by how usage prior to the First World War. The corpus is taken from classical literature in English, French, German, Russian, with Latin and Greek soon to follow, to provide a glimpse into the literary foundation which defined Europe’s intelligentsia at the zenith of European culture.
Functionality
- Read. Open a chapter by Austen, Pushkin or Tolstoy, and select any word for its meaning, its dictionary form and how common it is in context.
- Learn the words that matter first. Each text shows which words, learned in order of frequency, cover most of what you will encounter.
- Review. Words you mark as known come back for a quick check, so they stay.
Languages
The modern languages for now are English, Russian, German and French. The initial Classical languages will, of course, be Latin and Greek. The modern languages are presented by default in their period-appropriate orthographical standards, but someone simply interested in reading can switch to modern orthography in their settings.
Status
The preliminary release is still in development. Before the end of 2026, a sample accessible without any account or signing up will be available, wherein one shall find a short list of common words and a chapter for each language. This project will always be free to use, for the purpose of supporting access to European literature and heritage.
Sources
The corpora assembled for this project are all from before the First World War, thus falling into the public domain by our present time. More recent materials have been perused for research and reference purposes, particularly in light of grappling certain aspects of historical linguistics and accent reconstruction. A full list of sources will accompany each release.
Contact
Questions, corrections and suggestions: support@chrestomathia.org.