Re: Writting Greek in Emacs

[Thanos Apollo]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

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>
>   > I normally use the greek-ibycus4 input method.
>
> That name is rather cryptic.  Would it be beneficial to rename it to
> greek-classical-betacode?
>

I'm not sure renaming a current input methods would be beneficial.  I've
been taking a closer look to Unicode & how Unicode Greek Extended[1] should be
implemented in Emacs.

Greek polytonic support has the addition of 96 Upper case glyphs:

   ἈἉἊἋἌἍἎἏᾺΆᾸᾹᾼᾈᾉᾊᾋᾌᾍᾎᾏ
   ἘἙἚἛἜἝῈΈ
   ἨἩἪἫἬἭἮἯῊΉῌᾘᾙᾚᾛᾜᾝᾞᾟ
   ἸἹἺἻἼἽἾἿῚΊῘῙ
   ὈὉὊὋὌὍῸΌ
   Ῥ
   ὙὛὝὟῪΎῨῩ
   ὨὩὪὫὬὭὮὯῺΏῼᾨᾩᾪᾫᾬᾭᾮᾯ

and 121 lower case:

   ἀἁἂἃἄἅἆἇὰάᾰᾱᾶᾳᾲᾴᾀᾁᾂᾃᾄᾅᾆᾇᾷ
   ἐἑἒἓἔἕὲέ
   ἠἡἢἣἤἥἦἧὴήῆῃῂῄᾐᾑᾒᾓᾔᾕᾖᾗῇ
   ἰἱἲἳἴἵἶἷὶίῐῑῖῒΐῗ
   ὀὁὂὃὄὅὸό
   ῥῤ
   ὑὓὕὗὺύῠῡὐὒὔὖῦῢΰῧ
   ὠὡὢὣὤὥὦὧὼώῶῳῲῴᾠᾡᾢᾣᾤᾥᾦᾧῷ

A greek-polytonic input method should also adjust for having diacritic
combinations, such as for ῝ (U+1FDD).

Additionally, I do not think it's proper to call it Classical Greek,
since it's the same script used by the current "greek" input method,
just with the addition of extra diacritics (many "tonous", polytonic).

I'm currently working on a greek-polytonic input method
  <https://git.thanosapollo.org/greek-polytonic.el/tree/greek-polytonic.el>

It's not finished, I'm not working full time on this for I'm under a
university exam period.  I'm digitizing a couple of older Greek
manuscripts & books that I have using this input method, when I've added
complete support for Greek Extended unicode characters & I find the
keybindings to be feeling "natural" for touch typing I will be
submitting it for inclusion in greek.el as a new input method.


[...]
> Should that package be included in Emacs?  Perhaps selected
> automatically by default by the input methods for classical Greek?  If
> that change is not inconvenient, it could be worth doing to simplify
> the interface users need to learn.
>

I'm not sure if including abbrevs for Greek could be done properly.
Greek vocabulary is rather extensive and one might end up with a file
with 1.000.000+ lines of abbrevs, due to Greek extensive grammatical
cases & vocabulary.

Instead I was thinking of making a "greek-extras" package, which will
include improved support for searching Greek, such as to match all
versions of "ε" with versions that include diacritics (έ ὲ ἔ etc) when
doing isearch-forward etc & to automatically add diacritics to any Greek
text.

Greek diacritics are not random, they follow a specific set of rules,
one could code a greek-polytonic-buffer to just scan every word
in a buffer & replace the wrong glyphs with the proper ones with
diacritics, depending on how the word is structured.


[1] https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1F00.pdf
-- 
Thanos Apollo
https://thanosapollo.org

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