Typing Tutor for Ancient Greek

RandallButh
Posts: 1105
Joined: May 13th, 2011, 4:01 am

Re: Typing Tutor for Ancient Greek

Post by RandallButh »

I use the Hebrew SIL mapping.
That is exactly what I would recommend NOT doing. There are millions of keyboards around the world used interchangeably by Hebrew speakers. When I type in anything on any Hebrew speaker's computer it comes up correct Hebrew without thinking.

Story: once upon a time [but this actually happened]:
At SBL, maybe thirty years ago, one of the vendors asserted that their program now typed Hebrew. I was happy, so I immediately typed out a sentence and it came up gibberish. The vender said, "You need to type with the correct keyboard." I told him that I touch-type Hebrew, and that their program needs to change. He claimed that Microsoft/BillyGates cannot dictate what the keyboard should be. I responded, "It's called the Hebrew typewriter layout. Microsoft has nothing to do with it." English-based Bible software people needed to step outside of their very small bubble. Accordance has done so.

Subliminal benefit: learning the national keyboards reinforces that these are REAL languages, and that enhances learning. Languages are meant to communicate, and to do so without excessive convolutions. That should drive students.

Message to new students: learn the Greek national keyboard (install a polytonic version), and learn the Hebrew national keyboard.
(Corollary: stay away from programs that do otherwise. They probably get other stuff wrong, too. I don't have time to document. caveat lector.)
Devenios Doulenios
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Joined: May 31st, 2011, 5:11 pm
Location: Carlisle, Arkansas, USA
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Re: Typing Tutor for Ancient Greek

Post by Devenios Doulenios »

Hi Jonathan,

If you don't mind using the Hebrew QWERTY keyboard, the Nikud are available on it for Mac. Just go to the Systems Preferences and activate it under the Language and Region options for keyboard input. Once you have the keyboard activated, you just press the option key and you can see the Nikud layout on the keyboard viewer. I use this for Hebrew some. It works fine. Another option for Mac, one that I use more often, is the Nikud toolbar in the LibreOffice word processor. (LibreOffice is the successor app to NeoOffice). You download the toolbar and install as an extension. A third option is the Tyndale House keyboard. I used it some years ago, and it worked just fine. Checked their site just now, https://academic.tyndalehouse.com/unicode-font-kit, and from what they say, it should work now also. Unicode fonts are used, and they say it will work with any Mac OS of 10.2 or higher. You can see the characters on the keyboard viewer, or print out the included keyboard layout pdf.

While we're talking Apple products and Hebrew Nikud, I should note there are also a couple of apps for iOS that provide Nikud. They are Davka Nikud and Hebrew Writer. Davka is free, and works on both iPad and iPhone. Hebrew Writer is $4.99 USD, and works on both iPad and iPhone. HW is a newer app, which provides more features. It provides more Hebrew fonts and also has an included library with Tanakh and Talmud. Davka just focuses on the writing, but it works great. I have used it some on our iPad. Both apps can run on iOS 8 or higher. You can get them from the App Store.
Dewayne Dulaney
Δεβένιος Δουλένιος

Blog: https://letancientvoicesspeak.wordpress.com/

"Ὁδοὶ δύο εἰσί, μία τῆς ζωῆς καὶ μία τοῦ θανάτου."--Διδαχή Α, α'
Daniel Semler
Posts: 315
Joined: February 18th, 2019, 7:45 pm

Re: Typing Tutor for Ancient Greek

Post by Daniel Semler »

RandallButh wrote: May 2nd, 2020, 1:54 pm
I use the Hebrew SIL mapping.
That is exactly what I would recommend NOT doing. There are millions of keyboards around the world used interchangeably by Hebrew speakers. When I type in anything on any Hebrew speaker's computer it comes up correct Hebrew without thinking.

Story: once upon a time [but this actually happened]:
At SBL, maybe thirty years ago, one of the vendors asserted that their program now typed Hebrew. I was happy, so I immediately typed out a sentence and it came up gibberish. The vender said, "You need to type with the correct keyboard." I told him that I touch-type Hebrew, and that their program needs to change. He claimed that Microsoft/BillyGates cannot dictate what the keyboard should be. I responded, "It's called the Hebrew typewriter layout. Microsoft has nothing to do with it." English-based Bible software people needed to step outside of their very small bubble. Accordance has done so.

Subliminal benefit: learning the national keyboards reinforces that these are REAL languages, and that enhances learning. Languages are meant to communicate, and to do so without excessive convolutions. That should drive students.

Message to new students: learn the Greek national keyboard (install a polytonic version), and learn the Hebrew national keyboard.
(Corollary: stay away from programs that do otherwise. They probably get other stuff wrong, too. I don't have time to document. caveat lector.)
"The computer won't let me do it", as though they were somehow at fault, is indeed a funny response which I heard from people years ago - I'm a software programmer by trade. It is not the people that should change, in most cases, for sure.

When I get back to Hebrew I'll check into the mapping I'm using and see what I want to do. I haven't made enough progress there for what I have to be any great loss.

I'll look into the Greek keyboard thing too. Your arguments make sense to me for sure. I'm am just concerned to have a mapping I can get all the diacritics and combinations I encounter or want, and have had trouble in the past with that.

Thx
D
Last edited by Daniel Semler on May 4th, 2020, 10:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
Daniel Semler
Posts: 315
Joined: February 18th, 2019, 7:45 pm

Re: Typing Tutor for Ancient Greek

Post by Daniel Semler »

Hi All,

I now have a practice typing tool - took the greater part of the w/e to knock together a rough prototype. So I can practice easily with any text and keyboard I want. Just a Typescript/Vue based thing that runs in a browser - paste in whatever sample text you want - use whatever keyboard you want. As you go the current line is enlarged above where you are typing, so it's easy to read and compare. I can add functions to it, as I go, as needed.

If anyone is interested in seeing it I'll make another post once I have a github repo up and it's a bit cleaned up.

Thx
D
Jonathan Robie
Posts: 4158
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:34 pm
Location: Durham, NC
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Re: Typing Tutor for Ancient Greek

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Sure, that would be cool for people learning to type in Greek.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
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