[NTG-context] Ancient Greek

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Wednesday, August 18, 2004 Steffen Wolfrum wrote:

> Hi,

> I am about to edit a book with quotes in ancient (polyphonic) greek.
> How can this be done in ConTeXt?

> Searching for answers I found the long and painful thread
> started by Thomas A. Schmitz almost one year ago.

> Do we have an easier way available today?

Download Claudio Beccari's fonts. (cbgreek)

Use the attached cbgreek.tex typescript file (Hans, maybe it's
the case to add it to the distribution?) and you should then be
able to type something like this:

==== greektest.tex =====

\usetypescriptfile[cbgreek]

\usetypescript [all] [cbgreek]

\def\enablegreek{\language[greek]\catcode`~=\other\catcode`|=\other}
\def\startgreek{\par\begingroup\setupbodyfont[cbgreek]\enablegreek}
\let\stopgreek\endgroup

\def\greek{\groupedcommand{\switchtobodyfont[cbgreek]\enablegreek}{}}

\mainlanguage[english]

\starttext

We can easily use plain English for normal text, and then switch
to greek when we want; as a first try we type the lower and
upper case 26 letters of the latin alphabet and see how they come
out in greek:
\startgreek
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
\stopgreek

As it can be observed, some uppercase letters have strange
outcomes; also, j gives \greek{j} and c gives the
end-of-word sigma \greek{c}; interestingly, s gives either the
normal sigma or the end-of-word one, depending on whether it's at
the of the word or not: \greek{satrapws}.

Of course we can use the various diacritical signs: accents
(\greek{`a, 'a, ~a}), breathings (\greek{<r, >w, a"}) and
subscribed iotas (\greek{a|, h|, w|}) (these last are pretty ugly in my
opinion); observe how they automatically get the correct position
with uppercase letters: (\greek{`A, 'A, ~A, <A, >A, A|}).

Can the thing be used for serious work?

\startgreek
>'Andra moi >'ennepe, Mo~usa, pol'utropon, >'os m'ala poll`a\hfill\break
pl'agqjh, >epe`i Tro'ihs <er`on ptol'iejron >'eperse;\hfill\break
poll~wn d" >anjr'wpwn >'iden >'astea ka`i n'oon >'egnw,\hfill\break
poll`a d" <'o g" >en p'ontw| p'ajen >'algea <`on kat`a jum'on,\hfill\break
>arn'umenos <'hn te yuq`hn ka`i n'oston <eta'irwn.
\stopgreek

\stoptext
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