Smart quotes for Greek (questions for a possible patch)

Smart quotes for Greek (questions for a possible patch)

[Juan Manuel Macías]

Hi,

I would like to submit a patch to add smart quotes for Greek in
`org-export-smart-quotes-alist', but I have a couple of questions.

First of all, I am not a native speaker of Greek but of Spanish, so I
would also like to have the opinion of some Greek native speaker, to see
if my solutions are correct.

The second question concerns the second-level quotation marks for Greek.
The first level ones are the same as the Spanish or French quotes
(without the extra space of French): «», so no problem. I follow here
the rule that Yannis Haralambous explains in "From Unicode to
Typography, a Case Study: the Greek Script" (1999, p. 20:
http://web.archive.org/web/20120229131933/http://omega.enstb.org/yannis/pdf/boston99.pdf).

According to Haralambous, on the second-level quotation marks (the
emphases are mine):

#+begin_quote

Also interesting is the case of the second level quotes. Here, quotes of
the size and shape of the English ones are used, but the opening quotes
are inverted, similar in form to raised small round guillemets [...].
Fortunately these quotes are provided by the Unicode standard (*U+201F*
and U+201D, the latter being the same closing double quotes as in
English); *the author knows no other language in which this combination
of double quotes might be used*.

#+end_quote

So the problem is in the character U+201F (assuming Haralambous is
right). For the keywords `:utf8' and `html' no problem. But I don't know
what to put in `:latex' or in `:texinfo':

#+begin_src emacs-lisp
(secondary-opening :utf-8 "‟" :html "‟;" :latex "??" :texinfo "??")
#+end_src

In fact, I think latex2e has no command or shorthand predefined for this
character (see https://ibb.co/ZBGmwYP). There would be no problem with
LuaTeX and XeTeX. But this character would be difficult to obtain in
pdfTeX even using inputenc with the utf8 option.

Best regards,

Juan Manuel

Re: Smart quotes for Greek (questions for a possible patch)

[Maxim Nikulin]

On 14/08/2021 22:06, Juan Manuel Macías wrote:
> 
> I would like to submit a patch to add smart quotes for Greek in
> `org-export-smart-quotes-alist', but I have a couple of questions.
> 
> First of all, I am not a native speaker of Greek

Disclaimer: I am not a Greek speaker at all.

> Yannis Haralambous explains in "From Unicode to
> Typography, a Case Study: the Greek Script" (1999, p. 20:
> http://web.archive.org/web/20120229131933/http://omega.enstb.org/yannis/pdf/boston99.pdf).
> 
> Fortunately these quotes are provided by the Unicode standard (*U+201F*
> and U+201D, the latter being the same closing double quotes as in
> English);

There is no Greek page for
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark
As to English page, notice
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark#Summary_table
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark#Greek
sections. It cites
http://publications.europa.eu/code/el/el-4100107el.htm
that uses “ U+0201C (“, &lquo;, or &lquot;) and ” U+0201D (&#8221, 
&rquo;, or &rquot;) as inner quotes. If it is acceptable to use this 
pair, LaTeX commands likely may be \textquotedblleft and 
\textquotedblright (or simply `` and ''). I have not noticed anything 
more appropriate in "The Comprehensive LATEX Symbol List". Even
https://www.ctan.org/pkg/babel-greek does not suggest proper way for 
inner quotes.

Even if precise variant is uncertain, maybe any reasonable choice is 
better than currently used defaults. Anyway it may be corrected later.

> #+begin_src emacs-lisp
> (secondary-opening :utf-8 "‟" :html "‟;" :latex "??" :texinfo "??")
> #+end_src

It seems, there is no named entity for U+0201F
https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/named-characters.html#named-character-references

For some unclear reason (there is a badge requesting references), 
Russian page
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Кавычки
mentions
- «…» as usually used outer,
- ‹…› as usually used inner,
- “…” as alternative outer,
- ‘…’ as alternative inner
quotes. Perhaps, it is just a mistake.

Re: Smart quotes for Greek (questions for a possible patch)

[mvar]

Juan Manuel Macías <maciaschain@posteo.net> writes:

> Hi,
>
> I would like to submit a patch to add smart quotes for Greek in
> `org-export-smart-quotes-alist', but I have a couple of questions.
>
> First of all, I am not a native speaker of Greek but of Spanish, so I
> would also like to have the opinion of some Greek native speaker, to see
> if my solutions are correct.
>
> The second question concerns the second-level quotation marks for Greek.
> The first level ones are the same as the Spanish or French quotes
> (without the extra space of French): «», so no problem. I follow here
> the rule that Yannis Haralambous explains in "From Unicode to
> Typography, a Case Study: the Greek Script" (1999, p. 20:
> http://web.archive.org/web/20120229131933/http://omega.enstb.org/yannis/pdf/boston99.pdf).
>
> According to Haralambous, on the second-level quotation marks (the
> emphases are mine):
>
> #+begin_quote
>
> Also interesting is the case of the second level quotes. Here, quotes of
> the size and shape of the English ones are used, but the opening quotes
> are inverted, similar in form to raised small round guillemets [...].
> Fortunately these quotes are provided by the Unicode standard (*U+201F*
> and U+201D, the latter being the same closing double quotes as in
> English); *the author knows no other language in which this combination
> of double quotes might be used*.
>
> #+end_quote
>
>
> So the problem is in the character U+201F (assuming Haralambous is
> right). For the keywords `:utf8' and `html' no problem. But I don't know
> what to put in `:latex' or in `:texinfo':
>
> #+begin_src emacs-lisp
> (secondary-opening :utf-8 "‟" :html "&#8223;;" :latex "??" :texinfo "??")
> #+end_src
>
> In fact, I think latex2e has no command or shorthand predefined for this
> character (see https://ibb.co/ZBGmwYP). There would be no problem with
> LuaTeX and XeTeX. But this character would be difficult to obtain in
> pdfTeX even using inputenc with the utf8 option.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Juan Manuel

hi Juan,

i can confirm the «» characters are the proper ones for the first level
of quoting..Now about second level, personally i haven't seen such nesting in
ages but IIRC they should be the ones (or *very* similar) in the linked image you posted ->
\textquotedblleft and \textquotedblright. I've no idea how these
translate to UTF. Note that the standard greek keyboards & keymaps do not have
any of these characters mapped by default (not even «» ), most people use the standard
english double/single quotes, at least in electronic writing (articles,
daily communication etc).
Protesilaos (cc) might have a better view on this matter.

cheers,
Michalis

Re: Smart quotes for Greek (questions for a possible patch)

[Juan Manuel Macías]

Hi Michalis. Thank you for your comments.

mvar writes:

> i can confirm the «» characters are the proper ones for the first level
> of quoting..Now about second level, personally i haven't seen such nesting in
> ages but IIRC they should be the ones (or *very* similar) in the linked image you posted ->
> \textquotedblleft and \textquotedblright. I've no idea how these
> translate to UTF. Note that the standard greek keyboards & keymaps do not have
> any of these characters mapped by default (not even «» ), most people use the standard
> english double/single quotes, at least in electronic writing (articles,
> daily communication etc).
> Protesilaos (cc) might have a better view on this matter.

Yes, I think \textquotedblleft and \textquotedblright could be a good
solution. Those are the first level quotes for English and other
languages, and the second level quotes for Spanish, so in this case the
Spanish settings in `org-export-smart-quotes-alist' could be copied for
Greek. In Unicode they are equivalent to

“ LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK U+201C 

and

” RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK U+201D 

In fact, the second quotes, U+201D, would be the correct ones for Greek
(always, according to Haralambous). The only difference is for the
opening quotes: in this case Greek would use (again, according to
Haralambous) the character U+201F: ‟ (DOUBLE HIGH-REVERSED-9 QUOTATION
MARK), which is like the U+201C char, but upside down. In LuaTeX and
XeTeX (and in HTML) there is no problem to represent that character,
because these two TeX engines are based on Unicode. The problem would be
the backward compatibility with pdfTeX. I haven't managed to get this
character in pdfTeX using inputenc with the utf8 option.

Therefore, we could leave for the second-level quotation marks the
tandem U+201C/201D, as the lesser evil. Let's see what Protesilaos
thinks.

Best regards,

Juan Manuel 

Re: Smart quotes for Greek (questions for a possible patch)

[Protesilaos Stavrou]

On 2021-08-16, 00:28 +0300, mvar <mvar.40k@gmail.com> wrote:

> Juan Manuel Macías <maciaschain@posteo.net> writes:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I would like to submit a patch to add smart quotes for Greek in
>> `org-export-smart-quotes-alist', but I have a couple of questions.
>>
>> First of all, I am not a native speaker of Greek but of Spanish, so I
>> would also like to have the opinion of some Greek native speaker, to see
>> if my solutions are correct.
>>
>> The second question concerns the second-level quotation marks for Greek.
>> The first level ones are the same as the Spanish or French quotes
>> (without the extra space of French): «», so no problem. I follow here
>> the rule that Yannis Haralambous explains in "From Unicode to
>> Typography, a Case Study: the Greek Script" (1999, p. 20:
>> http://web.archive.org/web/20120229131933/http://omega.enstb.org/yannis/pdf/boston99.pdf).
>>
>> According to Haralambous, on the second-level quotation marks (the
>> emphases are mine):
>>
>> #+begin_quote
>>
>> Also interesting is the case of the second level quotes. Here, quotes of
>> the size and shape of the English ones are used, but the opening quotes
>> are inverted, similar in form to raised small round guillemets [...].
>> Fortunately these quotes are provided by the Unicode standard (*U+201F*
>> and U+201D, the latter being the same closing double quotes as in
>> English); *the author knows no other language in which this combination
>> of double quotes might be used*.
>>
>> #+end_quote
>>
>>
>> So the problem is in the character U+201F (assuming Haralambous is
>> right). For the keywords `:utf8' and `html' no problem. But I don't know
>> what to put in `:latex' or in `:texinfo':
>>
>> #+begin_src emacs-lisp
>> (secondary-opening :utf-8 "‟" :html "&#8223;;" :latex "??" :texinfo "??")
>> #+end_src
>>
>> In fact, I think latex2e has no command or shorthand predefined for this
>> character (see https://ibb.co/ZBGmwYP). There would be no problem with
>> LuaTeX and XeTeX. But this character would be difficult to obtain in
>> pdfTeX even using inputenc with the utf8 option.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Juan Manuel
>
> hi Juan,
>
> i can confirm the «» characters are the proper ones for the first level
> of quoting..Now about second level, personally i haven't seen such nesting in
> ages but IIRC they should be the ones (or *very* similar) in the linked image you posted ->
> \textquotedblleft and \textquotedblright. I've no idea how these
> translate to UTF. Note that the standard greek keyboards & keymaps do not have
> any of these characters mapped by default (not even «» ), most people use the standard
> english double/single quotes, at least in electronic writing (articles,
> daily communication etc).
> Protesilaos (cc) might have a better view on this matter.
>
> cheers,
> Michalis

Hello Michalis, Juan Manuel,

[ I had no access to a computer and could not get to you sooner.  Expect
  timely replies from now on. ]

The first level quotes are indeed «».  For the other two, I have to rely
on what I have encountered before, namely, that the second level is
denoted with double curly quotes “” and third with single curly quotes
‘’.

I have come across those in EU documents.  There is a style guide for
the European Institutions.[1][2][3]

I do not know latex notation to help you with the technicalities.
Here are the unicode points:

    | « | U+00AB |
    | » | U+00BB |
    | “ | U+201C |
    | ” | U+201D |
    | ‘ | U+2018 |
    | ’ | U+2019 |

All the best,
Protesilaos

[1] Quotes: <http://publications.europa.eu/code/el/el-4100107el.htm>.
[2] General info: <http://publications.europa.eu/code/el/el-4100000.htm>.
[3] Main portal: <http://publications.europa.eu/code/el/el-000100.htm>.


-- 
Protesilaos Stavrou
https://protesilaos.com

Re: Smart quotes for Greek (questions for a possible patch)

[Juan Manuel Macías]

Hello Protesilaos and Michalis,

Thank you very much, Protesilaos, for the valuable information. It can
be confirmed, then, that the quotation marks rules for current Greek are
identical to the rules for Spanish, so it will be enough to copy the
existing configuration for Spanish in `org-export-smart-quotes-alist'.

It seems that the character U+201F as the first second level quotes
(instead of U+201C), which Yannis Haralambous comments in the article
cited in my first message, although historically attested, has been
abandoned...

Soon I will propose here a patch to support small quotes to
Greek.

Best regards,

Juan Manuel

Protesilaos Stavrou writes:

> Hello Michalis, Juan Manuel,
>
> [ I had no access to a computer and could not get to you sooner.  Expect
>   timely replies from now on. ]
>
> The first level quotes are indeed «».  For the other two, I have to rely
> on what I have encountered before, namely, that the second level is
> denoted with double curly quotes “” and third with single curly quotes
> ‘’.
>
> I have come across those in EU documents.  There is a style guide for
> the European Institutions.[1][2][3]
>
> I do not know latex notation to help you with the technicalities.
> Here are the unicode points:
>
>     | « | U+00AB |
>     | » | U+00BB |
>     | “ | U+201C |
>     | ” | U+201D |
>     | ‘ | U+2018 |
>     | ’ | U+2019 |
>
> All the best,
> Protesilaos
>
> [1] Quotes: <http://publications.europa.eu/code/el/el-4100107el.htm>.
> [2] General info: <http://publications.europa.eu/code/el/el-4100000.htm>.
> [3] Main portal: <http://publications.europa.eu/code/el/el-000100.htm>.