WEBSTER FONTS ============= * Overview This file describes special symbols and markup entities used in the GNU Collaborative International Dictionary of English. * Introduction The special characters used in the electronic version of the Webster 1913 are required for visualizing unusual characters used in the etymology and pronunciation fields of the dictionary, in a form comparable to the way they appear in the original. The GCIDE markup provides two ways for representing such characters: using special "escape sequences" and using special markup entities. Historically, "escape sequences" were used to indicate the character's ordinal position in a special font, prepared by MICRA, Inc. to represent it on screen. Although nowadays this method is obsolete, the dictionary corpus still uses these sequences. This file describes their mapping to Unicode characters. An escape sequence has the form \'xx, where "x" represent lowercase hexadecimal digits. For example, \'94 stands for "o" with diaeresis. There are only 256 such sequences. Special markup entities are able to represent a wider range of characters. A markup entity is similar to SGML one, but has a different format. The traditional &xx; format was judged inconvenient because the ampersand is used frequently in the corpus. Instead, GCIDE entities have the format ... surrounding the italic text, or by some other tag which also implies italic font. In the pronunciations, however, where italicized vowels are used among non-italic and other special characters to indicate pronunciation, the special codes and <) because of possible typographical differences in some fonts. The schwa is symbolized by $ > > greater than 200 128 80 , is a Greek transliteration written in roman letters. The following rules are used: ** Aspirants Aspirants are represented by ' (apostrophe) and " (double quote) placed in front of the letter modified. Apostrophe stands for ψιλὸν πνεῦμα (ψιλή or spiritus lenis), and double quote stands for δασὺ πνεῦμα (δασεία or spiritus asper). 'a -- ἀ "a -- ἁ ** Accents Accents are placed after the accented letter. The acute accent (ὀξεῖα) is represented by ` (gravis). The grave accent (βαρεῖα) is represented by ~ (tilde), and circumflex (περισπωμένη) is represented by circumflex. Thus: a` -- ά a~ -- ὰ a^ -- ᾶ Some examples of the combined forms (aspirant + accent): 'a` -- ἄ 'a~ -- ἂ 'a^ -- ἆ "a` -- ἄ "a~ -- ἂ, "a~ -- ἃ ** Iota subscriptum Iota subscript is represented by comma placed after the affected vowel. If the vowel is accented, the comma is placed after the accent mark. For example: a`, -- ᾴ 'a`, -- ᾄ ** Diaeresis Diaeresis is represented by a colon immediately after the affected vowel. If the vowel is accented, the accent is placed after the colon, e.g.: i: -- ϊ i:^ -- ῗ i:` -- ῒ ** Letters The table below shows, for each Greek letter, the corresponding markup entity and transliteration. The capitalized Greek letters are represented by the capitalized versions of the letters shown here. ----------------------------------------- Greek letter transliteration ------------ --------------- α alpha a β beta b γ gamma g δ delta d ε epsilon e ζ zeta z η eta h θ theta q [1] ι iota i κ kappa k λ lambda l μ mu m ν nu n ξ xi x ο omicron o π pi p ρ rho r σ,ς sigma s [2] τ tau t υ upsilon y,u [3] φ phi f χ chi ch [4] ψ psi ps [5] ω omega w --- [1] "th" was used in some earier sections, but was changed due to potential confusion with the tau+eta combination, as in λυτήριος (lyth`rios, at "lyterian") or ποιητής (poihth`s, at "maker"). [2] Final sigma is not distinguished here from middle sigma, but when isolated, use 'archai:`zein ἀρχαῒζειν zw^,on ζῷον o'i^nos οἶνος "ydra`rgyros ὑδράργυρος Local Variables: mode: Outline coding: utf-8 fill-column: 76 End: