[B-Greek] illegal Greek Capital letters with some accents

Bert de Haan b_dehaan at sympatico.ca
Mon Sep 4 15:44:27 EDT 2006


   "Oun Kwon" <kwonbbl at gmail.com>  wrote:

"A question on Gk letters and Gk keyboard inputting

After I downloaded a free program for inputting Gk letters on keyboard
(Tavultesoft Keyman), I tried various accented letters. Curiously I
could not input the capital upsilon with smooth breathing.

When I tried in the word processing software 'NotaBene' to see how
this works. It IS possible.  However, the character thus formed in
NotaBene apparently is not in the true font set. When I tried to cut
and paste this accented letter into the MS Word file, it did not work.
For a while ago, I have sent out a few e-mails concerning this curious
observation until today I happen to come across a statement

(Capital letters with circumflex alone are not legal.)
(Capital upsilon and rho with smooth breathings are not legal characters.)

in the font set (in Word file) of the Palatino font.

Now I happily have solved the mystery, I like to know what is the
reason for these combination of capital character with smooth
breathing to be not legal. It is one thing I do not see these letters
in Gk text, why it has to be illegal?

Thanks for your help.

Oun Kwon"

(BdH)
I don't think you'll ever find a Upsilon with a smooth breathing.  Maybe 
that is why they call it illegal.
Just like you will not find a circumflex on the antepenult.  I guess they 
would call that illegal as well.
I do find it a strange word to use for this situation.  'Incorrect' would 
bring the message across more clearly and then we would not have to worry 
about getting in trouble with the law.
Bert de Haan.





More information about the B-Greek mailing list