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From: dan@brand.UUCP (Dan Antzoulatos)
Newsgroups: net.nlang.greek
Subject: Greek Transliteration Standard (& Code)
Message-ID: <168@brand.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 24-Oct-85 00:15:10 EST
Article-I.D.: brand.168
Posted: Thu Oct 24 00:15:10 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 29-Oct-85 01:09:26 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: U. of So. Calif., Los Angeles
Lines: 176
Geia Xara,
Gia kamposous mnves twra diabazw tis epikoivwvies se auto to
diktuo. Exw paratnrnsei oti o kathevas xrnsimopoiei diko tou stul stnv
metafrasn grammatwv. Eivai fusika duskolo va diabaseis Ellnvika
grammeva me agglika grammata, alla me tis diafores parallages
givetai akoma pio duskolo. Wraia thatav va mporousame va metatrepsoume
ta agglika grammata sta Ellnvika mia kai uparxouv se afthovia
"text processors" kai "laser printers" pou mporouv va kavouv tnv douleia.
Alla gia va graftn katallnlo programma prepei va exoume kapoia
sumfwvia, kapoio stavtarvt gia to pws akribws tha givei n metatropn.
Epeidn eimai sxetika kaivourgios sto diktuo, dev kserw av exete ksavamilnsei
gia auto to thema. Blepovtas omws oti akoma eksakolouthei to problnma,
upothetw oti estw kai av egive suzntnsn, apofasn dev parthnke. Gi'auto
thelw va proteivw eva "standard".
Auto to keimevo pou diabazete twra exei graftei me auto to "standard".
Basika kathe ellnviko gramma avtistoixei me to aggliko gramma pou eivai
sxedov idio se emfavnsn. Yparxouv bebaia eksaireseis. Kserw oti autn n
methodos dev tha kaloaresei se pollous, eidikws se autous pou exouv
suvnthnsei me allo stul. Gia va pw kai tnv alntheia, faivetai ligo
allokoto stnv arxn. Alla gia va diatnrnthei n orthografia (i,ei,n, ktl.)
autn n methodos exei pleovektnmata se suvgrnsn me tnv <> methodo.
Exw grapsei eva aplo programma gia tnv metatropnv pou douleuei se
"UNIX" me to "sed editor" kai to "troff". Eivai movo mia arxn. Av
pragmati givei dextn n sumfwvia, tha aksizei va graftei eva pio sobaro
programma. Akolouthei to "standard" (sta Agglnka) kai to programma
metatropns.
The following mapping convention is proposed for writing greek text using
the english alphabet:
Upper Case Greek Lower Case
---------- ----- ----------
A <---> alpha <---> a
B <---> beta <---> b
G <---> gamma <---> g
D <---> delta <---> d
E <---> epsilon <---> e
Z <---> zeta <---> z
H <---> eta <---> n
Th <---> theta <---> th
I <---> iota <---> i
K <---> kappa <---> k
L <---> lambda <---> l
M <---> mu <---> m
N <---> nu <---> v
Ks <---> xi <---> ks
O <---> omicron <---> o
P <---> pi <---> p
R <---> rho <---> r
S <---> sigma <---> s
T <---> tau <---> t
Y <---> upsilon <---> u or y
F <---> phi <---> f
X <---> chi <---> x (or ch)
Ps <---> psi <---> ps
W <---> omega <---> w
Note: Most letters are transliterated in a straightforward manner
based on similarity in sound and appearance. For a few cases
where an english letter is similar in sound to one greek
character but similar in appearance to another, preference is
given to that of similar appearance (not sound). This method
makes reading transliterated Greek easier. The appearance of a
word more quickly reminds us of its greek counterpart than if we
had to pronounce each letter in order to identify the sound.
The following cases should be especially noted since it
may be more natural to some people to transliterate by sound:
beta <--> b - is preferred to : 'beta <--> v' to avoid confusion
with 'nu'. The 'b' sound should be spelled as the
greek dipthong, 'mp'; e.g., "mpouti"
eta <--> n \ is preferred to : nu <--> n , eta <--> h or i;
nu <--> v / e.g., "tnv" looks more greek than "thn" or "tin"
xi <--> ks \ not : xi <--> x;
chi <--> x / e.g., "oxi" instead of "ochi"
upsilon <--> y - even though y is closer in appearance to the script
("kalligrafikov") psi, an exception must be made
because of its wide spread use as a transliteration
of upsilon: e.g., "psyxn" instead of "yuxn".
THETA <--> Th - not TH to avoid confusion when writing in capitals;
e.g., "ThHTEIA" is more understandable than "THHTEIA"
(This means that 'h' cannot be used for 'eta')
Following is a line editor command file (call it "map2greek") which will
perform a series of substitutions to turn any english letters found between
the \begin_greek ... \end_greek command pair into "troff" greek symbols
----------------------------------------------
/...Aug 28, 1985.../p
1 i\
.nf
/begin_greek/,/end_greek/{ /_greek/!{
s?ch?x?g
s?V?B?g
s?Y?U?g
s?ph?f?g
s?Ph?F?g
s?\([^T]*\)H?\1Y?g
s?th?h?g
s?Th?H?g
s?Q?H?g
s?ks?c?g
s?Ks?C?g
s?KS?C?g
s?y?u?g
s?ps?q?g
s?Ps?Q?g
s?PS?Q?g
s?n?y?g
s?v?n?g
s?[A-z]?\\(*&?g
s?*s\([^\\]\)?ts\1?g
s?*s$?ts?g
s?\\(ts?s?g
s? ? ?g
}
}
/_greek/d
----------------------------------------------
The line "s?\\(ts?s?g" is a kludge to use an english `s` instead of the
greek 'sigma telikov' which is not mapped correctly in our system.
If your troff does the correct mapping then delete this line.
So now in order to process a greek file you need to follow these steps:
1) insert the "\begin_greek" and e"\end_greek" commands respectively
before and after the greek text
2) perform the following command:
sed -f map2greek < filename | troff -ms | (... whatever command
you need to get
it to the laser
printer)
Problems:
Embedded english text will be translated into greek as well. Maybe a
more sophisticated program could look for a pair of quotes ("...")
and not transliterate the enclosed text. Another convention standard?
I would greatly appreciate any comments,
Dan "Ntenios" Antzoulatos
--
Daniel Antzoulatos [USC - Signal and Image Processing Institute]
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