Sunday, March 15, 2009

SBL Greek Unicode Font/Polytonic Keyboard Question

I have been playing around with the new SBL Unicode Greek font. I like the look of it. I just have one problem. I cannot seem to figure out how to use a circumflex and an iota subscript on the same letter!

Let's take the phrase in my favorite NT text, Hebrews, from the opening exordium: "through a son" (Heb. 1:2). In the Unicode text using the Polytonic Keyboard (which SBL recommends), I can write ἐν υἱῶ and I can write ἐν υἱῳ, but I cannot get the iota subscript under and the circumflex over the omega at the same time! I looked at the FAQ's and they said that to get two accent or diacritical marks on the same letter, you had to treat them as one...but how do you do that when the iota subscript is the same keystroke as the circumflex? Meaning, in regular keyboard type, the circumflex is the key that in roman script gives you "[" and the iota subscript is the shift plus the same key, giving you "{". I find this rather annoying.

By the way, when I try to do both, the greek mark is converted to block parenthesis. I am very happy to have the unicode font, but not being able to do this maneuver is frustrating, since it is quite common in the dative singular.

So, if you know how to solve this problem, please let me know!

5 comments:

Stephen C. Carlson said...

ἐν υἱῷ

You need to do: AltGr + [, followed by the omega.

AltGr is the Alt key to the right of the space bar.

Jared Calaway said...

It worked! Thanks a lot, Stephen!

Stephen C. Carlson said...

No prob. By the way, doing AltGr + the other accents usually gets you the iota subscript with that accent.

Jared Calaway said...

Great. Good to know. Thanks again.

Fred Hansen said...

I cried out with joy after reading this. I've been having the same problem for two years! Thanks so much.