[B-Greek] Greek accent perispomeni question

Patrick Durusau Patrick.Durusau at sbl-site.org
Thu Jun 17 07:35:52 EDT 2004


Greetings!

As many of you are aware, the SBL Font Foundation is working on 
releasing fonts for biblical languages that are free for non-commercial 
use. The test version of Hebrew has already been released and we 
anticipate seeing a test version of the Greek before the end of the 
summer (this summer).

Brief information about the Font Foundation can be found at: 
http://www.sbl-site.org/Resources/default.aspx, but it is under revision 
and I will have more information and hopefully a new page by the end of 
this month.

Our developer has a question about the Greek accent perispomeni. I have 
pasted his query with a GIF file that illustrates the question below.

Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated! (BTW, I am on 
the digest format so it may take a day or so for me to 
response/acknowledge mail to the list.)

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Patrick

****Question on the Greek perispomeni accent****

The Greek accent perispomeni may take two different forms. The first
and older of these forms is similar to the Latin tilde, a kind of wavy
form, although the Greek may have a different ductus (i.e. a different
pattern of contrast between thick and thin). This is the form of
perispomeni that is found in most manuscripts and in printing types
prior to the 19th century.

In the 19th century, the English classicist Richard Porson had a new
typeface cut based on his own Greek handwriting. This Porsonic style
was hugely influential on the publishing of classical texts in the
English-speaking world. One of the characteristics of the style is the
second, lunate form of perispomeni, which resembles an upturned
breve. Because of the popularity of the Porsonic style among
classicists, many may be more familiar with or have a preference for
the lunate perispomeni, even though the older, wavy form is still
found in a greater number of typefaces.

My query regarding the new SBL Greek is whether Biblical scholars have
a strong preference for either of the forms of perispomeni. My own
preference is for the older, wavy form, but if there is a significant
majority of users who would favour the Porsonic, lunate form, I would
consider using this. I believe I could design either to work well with
the SBL Greek letters.

Note that a preference for one or the other does not preclude
including both, with one accessible in some software as a stylistic
variant. In that case, the question would be which should be the
default form?

I am attaching a graphic that shows the perispomeni in a number of
different typefaces; the Porsonic form is shown last.

****/end query****
-- 
Patrick Durusau
Director of Research and Development
Society of Biblical Literature
Patrick.Durusau at sbl-site.org
Chair, V1 - Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface
Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model

Topic Maps: Human, not artificial, intelligence at work!


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