[B-Greek] Free Polytonic Uncial Greek Unicode Font?

John McChesney-Young panis at pacbell.net
Sun Aug 6 21:56:59 EDT 2006


At 8:02 PM -0400 8/6/06, Jim Darlack wrote in part:

>  ... I am interested in finding a free font, because
>I'm scanning in some old commentaries and resources
>that use a polytonic uncial font face to highlight
>various Greek words.
>
>The polytonic uncial font in Antioch is exactly what
>I'm after, but I'd rather use a "free" font, so that
>I can point a user to a free download that would let
>them view the web page with as much clarity as possible.

I had bcc'ed Ralph my post to the list, and he very kindly responded with:

The 6th c Codex Claromontanus in the French Bibliotheque Nationale, 
which is bilingual in Greek and Latin, is fully marked with 
diacritics, and indeed I based the diacritics in my uncial font on 
this.

The uncial font isn't included in the *trial* version of Antioch that 
you can download from 
<http://www.hancock.dircon.co.uk/antioch.htm>www.hancock.dircon.co.uk/antioch.htm 
(or the linked page  ... antioch2.htm for the newer version which 
most people now need). People who pay for the program are offered it, 
among a selection of other fonts.

However, if any classicist needs this font, I'll be happy to supply 
it to them directly, without the need to register Antioch. They 
should write to me at my main email address 
<mailto:hancock at dircon.co.uk>hancock at dircon.co.uk.

(end quote)

As I said, he's a prince of a fellow. :-)

Note that according to Metzger's _Text of the New Testament_ the 
diacritics in Claromontanus were added in the ninth century by the 
fourth of at least nine (!) correctors (p. 51 in the first ed.).

Rather than requiring a download of a new font, though, what about 
simply using (say) all capitals for the highlighted words? Or just a 
significantly different font for them if they're meant to be 
distinguished in the context of other Greek words? Alternatively, 
perhaps you could make the resources available in .pdf form, 
embedding the fonts?

Best,

John
-- 


*** John McChesney-Young  **  panis~at~pacbell.net  **   Berkeley, 
California, U.S.A.  ***



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