Re: Writting Greek in Emacs

["Juan Manuel Macías" <maciaschain@posteo.net>]

Thanos Apollo writes:

> Juan Manuel Macías <maciaschain@posteo.net> writes:
>
>
> [...]
>
> [...]
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>> For a classical philologist (I am a classical philologist)
>
> That's interesting, if possible I'd appreciate you providing some input
>
> - Do you use archaic Greek letters, such as digamma or koppa?  Is this
>   essential to your workflow?
>
> - Do you use ligature letters, such as stigma?  Is this essential to
>   your workflow?

I will answer these two questions in general terms, because everything
depends on each person's field of study (in addition, now I am not
dedicated to active philology, but rather to editorial production and
translation). Some archaic letters are necessary in certain texts. To
give a simple example, Sappho's poems are edited with the digamma to
note the sound of the semivowel /w/, a sound present in the Lesbian
dialect. In editions of papyracean fragments, the lunate sigma is used,
since many times it cannot be determined whether a sigma is in the
middle or final position. Etc. But If you study Aristotle (for example)
you will not need to use those characters in your workflow.

> - What are the reasons you prefer greek-ibycus4 over greek-babel (except
>   beta code).

I answer this question below.

>> more than enough. For those who dedicate themselves to epigraphy,
>> papyrology or linguistics, it probably won't be enough. What I mean is
>> that with ibycus4 anyone, with the necessary patience, could write all
>> the tragedies of Aeschylus in GNU Emacs. Which makes it a legitimate
>> input method for writing polytonic Greek.
>
> I cannot speak for papyrologist or hardcore linguists.  I just want to
> be able to write my mother tongue & do my work in Emacs, similarly to
> how I did in proprietary software, either that's writing the Gospels,
> replying to an email or chatting in IRC.
>

If I have not misunderstood (correct me if I am wrong) your proposal is
focused on the native Greek speaker. Of course, an input method of these
characteristics would be enriching, taking into account that there seems
to be certain divergences in how Greek is typed in Greece or outside of
Greece (especially among classicists). In my case, I prefer ibycus4
because it has a key combination that I am used to. I find it
comfortable. But it doesn't have to be comfortable for a native speaker.
Touch typing issues also influence. I, as a native Spanish speaker,
would find it shocking if the ‘ñ’ letter were in another position. For
those of us who are used to beta code (which was developed by someone
who is not a native Greek speaker), ibycus4 is probably the closest. But
beta code may be as alien for others users as a ‘misplaced’ Spanish
keyboard for me. I don't know if these ideas can serve to guide the
discussion...

Best regards,

Juan Manuel

--
Juan Manuel Macías -- Composición tipográfica, tratamiento de datos, diseño editorial y ortotipografía