Greek accents: sorting order - opinions sought

From: John Clews (10646er@sesame.demon.co.uk)
Date: Wed Mar 18 1998 - 08:00:16 EST


Greek accents: preferred sorting order

I have been trying to understand what is the underlying logical value
of Greek accents when filing monotoniko and/or politoniko Greek
characters, and would be grateful for any assistance.

I have been comparing the repertoires and the orders shown in ISO/IEC
10646 and in ISO/IEC FCD 14651 - the latter appears to show slight
variations in ordering of accented characters, unless I have misread
the listing slightly.

Both of these international standards/draft standards provide
monotoniko and polytoniko characters and I am trying to establish
whether there is a definitive overall order, and I would welcome
comments to correct any misunderstandings that exist in my chart
below.

For instance, I am trying to find out whether a list of several Greek
letters upsilon, all having different accents or accent combinations,
would be sorted in the order indicated below, or in some other order.

Please could you Reply any emails with the text below, and any
details of errors.

Assumptions: various combinations of accents 1-12 below (but not all
possible combinations) are used in Greek. They are sorted (if they
are sorted at all) in the order 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
giving rise to at least the combinations specified below, in the
overall order shown below.

Due to the limitations of 7-bit coding in emails, I am just showing
the accent shapes in very limited form, or a description. In
particular the TONOS (shown as | ) is frequently the same shape as
PSILI (acute accent) in some modern Greek text, rather than the
vertical bar sometimes used.

If any further combinations are possible, or if I have made any
errors below, I would be grateful to receive any further replies.

I would be particularly grateful to receive information as to when
VRACHY, MACRON, and KORONIS are used, and on the shapes of TONOS, and
on which (from the user's point of view) are just alternative glyphs
rather than different characters.

--+------+----------------------------------+-----------------------
# | UCSID| UNICODE & ISO/IEC 10646 NAME | SHAPE/DESCRIPTION
--+------+----------------------------------+-----------------------

1 1FB0* VRACHY breve
           [*for example].
           [Accent combinations unspecified]
                                                  _
2 0304 MACRON
           [Accent combinations unspecified]
        
3 0343 KORONIS '
    1FBD [Accent combinations unspecified]
           [Identical shape to PSILI in ISO/IEC 10646].
           [Assumed to accompany upper-case vowels
           while PSILI accompanies lower-case vowels]

4 0313 PSILI '
    1FBF
           PSILI AND VARIA 'grave
           PSILI AND VARIA AND YPOGEGRAMMENI
           PSILI AND OXIA 'acute
           PSILI AND OXIA AND YPOGEGRAMMENI
           PSILI AND PERISPOMENI 'tilde
           PSILI AND PERISPOMENI AND YPOGEGRAMMENI
           PSILI AND YPOGEGRAMMENI

5 0314 DASIA `
    1FFE DASIA AND VARIA `grave
           DASIA AND VARIA AND YPOGEGRAMMENI
           DASIA AND OXIA `acute
           DASIA AND OXIA AND YPOGEGRAMMENI
           DASIA AND PERISPOMENI `tilde
           DASIA AND PERISPOMENI AND YPOGEGRAMMENI
           DASIA AND YPOGEGRAMMENI
        
6 0300 VARIA grave
    1FEF
           VARIA AND YPOGEGRAMMENI
        
7 0301 OXIA acute
    1FFD
           OXIA AND YPOGEGRAMMENI
        
8 1FC0 PERISPOMENI tilde
           [0303 is TILDE but not PERISPOMENI]
           PERISPOMENI AND YPOGRAMMENI
        
9 030D TONOS |
        
10 0308 DIALYTIKA ..
           DIALYTIKA AND VARIA ..grave
           DIALYTIKA AND OXIA ..acute
           DIALYTIKA AND PERISPOMENI ..tilde
           DIALYTIKA AND TONOS .|.
        
11 1FBE PROSGEGRAMMENI [with upper-case] iota adscript
        
12 037A YPOGEGRAMMENI [with lower case] iota subscript

Note: in at least one version of Unicode, there appears to be an
error in Row 1F where some forms are shown with iota subscript
instead of iota adscript (subscript is below: adscript is by the
side). ISO/IEC 10646 does not have this problem.

I look forward to any replies on this, either direct to me, or on the
list if your reply raises other points of general interest.

Best wishes

John Clews

--
John Clews (Chair of ISO/TC46/SC2: Conversion of Written Languages)

SESAME Computer Projects, 8 Avenue Road, Harrogate, HG2 7PG, U.K. Email: Converse@sesame.demon.co.uk; tel: +44 (0) 1423 888 432



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