Re: css3-lists: Coptic and Ionic Greek

Ian Hickson wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Dec 2002, Christos Cheretakis wrote:
> 
>>Using phrasing from the description of the other systems, here you 
>>go. The steps do not follow my previous implementation. I'm trying to be 
>>as close to the WD's phrasing. [...]
> 
> 
> Wow thanks, that kicks ass! Excellent.
> 

   Trying to be nice... Maybe I'll convince you to not use the term 
"lower-greek" for the simple alphabetic sequence after all ;-)

> 
>>2.1 If there is no mapping for current digit, fallback to decimal
>>
>>Please note that steps 2.1 is only valid for modern greek.
> 
> 
> Because the ancient greek systems have no missing digits, right?
> 
> Seems odd that the newer system would be technically inferior...

   Yep, exactly. The ancient greek style included the ancient-ancient 
letters stigma, koppa and sampi, that stand for 6, 90 and 900 
respectively. These letters are not used anymore. In the modern style we 
use sigma+tau in stigma's stead, but there's no replacement for the 
other two letters.

> This is the only system that is not defined for such an odd range of
> numbers. Are you really sure that modern greek numbers are only defined in
> the range:
> 
>    1..89, 100..189, 200..289, 300..389, 400..489, 500..589, 600..689,
>    700..789, 800..889, 1000..1089, 1100..1189, 1200..1289, 1300..1389,
>    1400..1489, 1500..1589, 1600..1689, 1700..1789, 1800..1889, [...] 
>    889700..889789, 889800..889889.
> 
> ...?
> 
> That seems incredibly inconvenient.
> 

   Well, we don't really use it for long lists!!! Decimal would be 
preferrable for those cases!

> 
> 
>>2.5 For readability, include space between groups.
>>
>>Also note that step 2.5 is my addition. Modern greek uses sigma+tau to 
>>represent 6, but sigma and tau are also used to represent 200 and 300 
>>respectively.
> 
> 
> By "your addition" do you mean that normal modern greek doesn't include a
> space and is ambiguous? Should the ancient greek forms have spaces?
> 

   Ancient greek numbers are written as single words, there's no space 
(or any kind of spacing) in them. Modern greek is not used for numbers 
as big as the ones that would be ambiguous. But, if used in a numbering 
style, I guess, they would have to be disambiguated somehow. In 
hand-written greek, I would insert some space in the middle of the 
number to disambiguate it, if need be. In a list's context however, 
where the ambiguous positions are far away from each other, maybe the 
problem would not arise...

> 
>>Space does not mean U+0020, as the numbers are written as 
>>single words. It just means ...space.
> 
> 
> How about U+00A0 non-breaking space? Or U+2007 figure space?
> 

   It would certainly not be non-breaking space. But from their 
descriptions in the charts, U+2008 sounds better.

> 
>>ancient-greek
>>lower-modern-greek
>>upper-modern-greek
> 
> 
> Are these your preferred names?
> 
> How about ancient-greek, lower-greek, upper-greek, lower-greek-alpha,
> upper-greek-alpha?

   I'd really have no objection for the modern styles to be called 
either lower-modern-greek/upper-modern-greek or lower-greek/upper-greek. 
I guess the first one is more precise, while the second one's a bit 
shorter and more convenient. I'd surely hate to see the existing 
implementations be called simply lower-greek. But I'm sure you already 
know that ;-) lower-greek-alpha & upper-greek-alpha sounds better for them.

> Or, greek, lower-modern-greek, upper-modern-greek, lower-greek,
> upper-greek?
> 
> How about 'greek' as a shorter name for the 'lower-modern-greek' variant,
> so that the names are: ancient-greek, lower-modern-greek and greek,
> upper-modern-greek, lower-greek, upper-greek?
> 
> What do other people think?
> 

   There's only one of them... :-(

> 
>>3. If number contains a thousands group, then prepend lower numeral sign.
>>4. Always append numeral sign.
>>
>>numeral-sign is U+0374
>>lower-numeral-sign is U+0375
> 
> 
> Is "numeral-sign" a (sometimes absent) suffix, or is it part of the
> number? If it is part of the number, what would be the typical suffix? (In
> decimal, the suffix is '.' because lists go '1.', '2.', '3.', ...)
> 

   In the ancient greek style it is part of the number. In the modern 
styles, when used in a list's context like "alpha.", "beta.", etc., it 
would be dropped. Preferred suffix is ")", but ")." and "." are used as 
well.

> 
>>And some examples, with some, well, well-known numbers. The first 
>>column contains the names of the digits, the second their unicode 
>>position and the third an iso-8859-7 representation
> 
> 
> Cool, thanks. (FWIW, all i need are the codepoints. The rest means very
> little to me. :-) I use the codepoints to include examples in the spec.)
> 

   It helps me in copy-pasting the codepoints next to their names. And 
for one, I'm only sure about the iso7 column!!!

> 
>>the number of the beast would be:
>>ancient-greek: U+03C8 U+03BE U+03DB U+0374
> 
> 
> 766? :-)
> 

   Did I make a mistake, or is there another beast I'm not aware of?

> 
>>200300 would be:
>>lower-modern-greek: U+0375 U+03C3 space U+03C4 U+0374
>>upper-modern-greek: U+0375 U+03A3 space U+03A4 U+0374
> 
> 
> ...(where the space is needed to differentiate 200300 from 6000).
> 
> So would U+2007 be ok for that space? It seems like a good match for
> me. What do long greek books do for their page numbers?

   They use decimal!!! I'm not sure whether there's a tradition to use 
greek numbering in front- or back-matters, or appendices. I'll have to 
ask somebody who knows better and come back with an answer...

> 
> 
>>Note: 6 & 200300 could be ambiguous in modern greek, without the space. 
> 
> 
> How? Surely the U+0375 makes it unambiguous.

   Yep, you're right.

> 
> What would 891918 be?

   ,omega koppa alpha sampi iota eta' in ancient-greek only.

> Is there an example on the net of th 'modern' systems in use? Or anywhere
> in fact? I'd love to see this in practice, especially how they cope with
> the ambiguities and the 90 and 900s.
> 

   As I said, when you need long sequences of numbers, you simply use 
decimal. Maybe the Bible or similar religious publications would use 
greek-style, but they'd certainly use the ancient. Will check and follow up.

   I remember Mr. Karasavidis referring to a page of the greek Ministry 
of Culture for their service offices, but I cannot get to that URL right 
now.

   I've also found a list of the tax service offices at 
http://www.e-oikonomia.gr/ipiresies/doy/kodikoi_doy.htm . Some of them 
are numbered after the algorithmic style, but the biggest number I've 
seen is 23 (kappa-gamma).

	C/

-- 
   Λες κι η στάθμη της αγάπης πάει να βρει                          /"\
   Πόσοι κρύβονται στη λάσπη θησαυροί         ASCII Ribbon Campaign \ /
   Πως κοπήκανε στα δάχτυλα οι σταυροί           against HTML email  X
   Γι' ανθρώπων έργα...                     & microsoft attachments / \

Received on Monday, 16 December 2002 18:53:56 UTC