[B-Greek] little problem

jerry gerald_davis at hotmail.com
Thu Mar 19 17:32:18 EDT 2009


I'm a systems engineer. And it's very doubtful that there are functioning systems today that will not support unicode fonts. I don't know of any. So maybe it is time to pull the group out of the stone age, even if we do have a propensity and fondness for that time period.

The level of scholarship here is superlative and warrants operating at the highest level, not at a low level aiming at three or four total systems (literally) out in the world that may not be able to handle unicode.

What you are actually saying is that there may be people who don't want to ask a friend how to do it, which is a shame.

jerry



From: George F Somsel 
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 3:55 PM
To: jerry 
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] little problem


I think the problem is not the availability of unicode fonts supporting polytonic Greek but rather that there are some even yet who have systems which will not support unicode.
 
george
gfsomsel 



… search for truth, hear truth, 
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth, 
defend the truth till death.



- Jan Hus
_________ 





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: jerry <gerald_davis at hotmail.com>
To: B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 12:01:02 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] little problem

Sorry, I was very much hoping it was not a problem any longer with contemporary systems. Having to transcode the stuff will pretty much cut me off from asking any questions at all, and that's okay. I do understand the rule about using the transliteration. I was simply hoping everyone was using some version of unicode that is compatible with Greek text, and therefore would not notice my Greek font.

It seems to me that at this point in time in the 21st century, the rule ought to get changed to allow for the option to transcode or not (I thought I had read that somewhere on B-Greek already). I don't mind getting help only from people that can read Greek unicode fonts.

I suppose this comes up periodically as new students come online and wonder what's wrong here.  Unicode fonts are absolutely universally available now. No one has to go without it.  A few years ago, no.  But now they are.  Just now I was able to synthesize the problem on my computer by changing my character set to a non-unicode version, and all I got was scrambled characters for the Greek.

There might be a better forum for this discussion. Sorry if this is inappropriate here.

jerry



From: Sarah Madden 
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 10:32 AM
To: jerry 
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] little problem


Jerry --
Some of us can't read your Greek because of a filter in our computers. There is a B-Greek key to writing it in English, and someone will probably send you information on that. For example, in addition to writing the Greek, you would write it a second time with all the letters are translitered into English capital letters for those whose computers do not pick up your Greek font. To indicate a rough breathing, add a small "h" before the vowel. 

Below are the b-Greek letters I know:

A = alpha
B = beta
G = gamma
D = delta

E = epsilon 
Z = zeta
H = eta (Notice that B-Greek transliterates eta as an English "H" only because it looks like an "H" in Greek)
Q - theta (same reason)

I = iota
K = kappa
L = lambda
M - mu

N = nu
= xi (I can't remember this one, but it's pronounced "ksee" -- it's probably an English "X")
O = omicron
P = pi

R = rho
S = sigma (for both sigmas)
T = tau
U = upsilon

F = phi
C = chi
Y = psi (because of the look of an English "Y," not its sound)
W = omega (same reason)

Sarah ><>
Maryland





On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 9:08 AM, jerry <gerald_davis at hotmail.com> wrote:

  Hey, y'all,

  No one is doing Mastronarde Unit Seven right now, and I have a problem.

  From Exercise II., 6.  ἡ παρὰ τὸν ποταμὸν ὁδος χαλεπή.

  The answer key says, "The road along the river is difficult," and I am sure they thought that was easy for us beginners, especially since they gave us the "along the river" example, earlier.

  But I had a problem with τὸν ποταμὸν being accusative, so I thought, in context, "The difficult journey is beyond the river," would be a good translation as a nice little metaphor; or, "The road is hard beyond the river."

  So I guess that their suggestion has a couple implied verbs, "The road  -[which is]-  along the river -[is]- difficult."  I can live with that, except when there seems to be good alternatives.

  -----
  jerry davis
  φλόριδα, USA
  ---
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