IGNTP - INTF Guidelines for the Transcription of Manuscripts using Unicode Version 2: 12.04.10 Note that part of this document is best viewed in Gentium. Download Gentium from http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=FontDownloadsGentium Table of Contents Note: To go to a section listed in this Table of Contents click on the page number. 1. Preliminary Steps before Transcribing....................................................................................3 1.1 Operating Systems.................................................................................................................3 1.2 Programmes..........................................................................................................................3 1.3 Font.......................................................................................................................................3 1.4 Switching Keyboard Layouts..................................................................................................4 1.4.1 Macintosh OS X...........................................................................................................4 1.4.2 Windows Vista.............................................................................................................5 1.4.3 Windows XP................................................................................................................7 1.4.4 Windows 2000..............................................................................................................9 1.5 Character Palette/Map..........................................................................................................9 1.5.1 Macintosh OS X...........................................................................................................9 1.5.2 Windows Vista and XP...............................................................................................11 1.6 Base Texts............................................................................................................................12 1.7 Items for Copy and Paste Document....................................................................................12 2. Reference: Symbols and Example Page.................................................................................13 Frequently Used Symbols..........................................................................................................13 Example Page............................................................................................................................14 3. Preparing a Transcription......................................................................................................15 3.1 Important Terms..................................................................................................................15 3.2 Naming the Transcription....................................................................................................15 3.3 Status Note...........................................................................................................................16 4. Recording Folios, Pages, Columns and Lines........................................................................17 4.1 Folios, Pages, Columns and Lines.......................................................................................17 4.2 Text Beginning Part Way Down a Page...............................................................................18 5. Alteration of the Base Text in the Transcription...................................................................20 5.1 Inscriptions and Subscriptions.............................................................................................20 5.2 Word Division......................................................................................................................20 5.3 Omissions and Lacunae.......................................................................................................21 5.3.1 Omissions...................................................................................................................21 5.3.2 Lacunae......................................................................................................................22 5.3.3 Closing Lacuna Tags..................................................................................................23 5.4 Difficult to Read Text...........................................................................................................24 5.4.1 Uncertain Letters........................................................................................................24 1 5.4.2 Illegible Text..............................................................................................................24 5.5 Corrections, Alternative and Commentary Readings............................................................24 5.5.1 App Tags and First Hand Reading Tags......................................................................24 5.5.2 Corrector Tags............................................................................................................25 5.5.3 Correction of Omissions and Deletions by Correctors.................................................26 5.5.4 Closing Corrector Tags...............................................................................................26 5.5.5 Commentary Readings................................................................................................27 5.5.6 Alternative Readings..................................................................................................28 5.6 Personal Comments on the Text...........................................................................................28 5.7 Miscellaneous Items.............................................................................................................28 5.7.1 Symbols that are not to be Transcribed.......................................................................28 5.7.2 Accents and Breathing Marks.....................................................................................29 5.7.3 Punctuation Marks......................................................................................................29 5.7.4 Iota Adscript/Subscript...............................................................................................29 5.7.5 Nomina Sacra, Abbreviations and Ligatures...............................................................29 6. Supplements............................................................................................................................32 7. Ending the Transcription........................................................................................................33 8. Appendix.................................................................................................................................34 8.1 General Keystroke Table for Gentium using the Greek Polytonic Keyboard.........................34 8.2 The Most Common Forms of Nomina Sacra.........................................................................35 8.3 List of New Testament Book Numbers..................................................................................35 8.4 Greek Numbers....................................................................................................................36 8.5 Itacism (similar sound) and Isochronie (same sound)...........................................................36 8.6 Contacts...............................................................................................................................36 9. Glossary...................................................................................................................................37 Note: To go to a section listed in this Table of Contents click on the page number. 2 1. Preliminary Steps before Transcribing Before you are able to start transcribing a Greek manuscript, you will need to ensure that: • Your operating system will support Unicode. • You have an appropriate Programme loaded. • You have downloaded Gentium, the best Greek polytonic Unicode font for transcribing. • You can switch between a American/British keyboard and a Greek polytonic one. • You have access to the Character Palette (Mac) or Character Map (Windows). • You have downloaded an appropriate base text. • You have downloaded an appropriate Items for Copy and Paste document. Each of these points, including instructions on use where necessary, will be addressed in this first section. 1.1 Operating Systems In this section, there are instructions for preparing to transcribe using Macintosh and Microsoft Windows operating systems. All transcriptions must be Unicode compatible, which means that your operating system must provide Unicode support. Macintosh has included Unicode support since version 8.5. Microsoft began supporting Unicode with Windows NT 3.1 and Windows 95. 1.2 Programmes Transcriptions can be made in any of the following programmes: jEdit, BBEdit or Microsoft Word.1 Separate instructions for using Microsoft Word (on a Mac and a PC) for transcribing are currently available; IGNTP transcribers should contact either Bruce Morrill (US) or Rachel Kevern (UK) for a copy of these instructions (see 8.6 Contacts for email addresses). 1.3 Font The process of transcribing requires that you use a Greek polytonic Unicode font. One advantage of using a Unicode font for transcribing is that you can switch between English and Greek without changing fonts. Another advantage is that you can choose from a range of Greek polytonic fonts, some of which are more complete, and more attractive, than others. The best font for our purposes is Gentium, which has both Windows and Macintosh versions. It is recommended that you use this. It is attractive and easy to read in English and Greek and contains all the various symbols needed for a transcription.2 1 BBEdit and Microsoft Word must be Unicode compatible versions. 2 Gentium does not include Greek numerals. 3 Gentium is freely available on the Internet from http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=FontDownloadsGentium Click on ‘Download main Gentium fonts’. Scroll down the page and under ‘Download’ and click on the relevant link for your operating system, and follow on-screen instructions. Note that once the package has been downloaded, you will need a decompression utility such as WinZip (Windows) or Stuffit Expander (Macintosh) to expand the archive. Mac OS X will automatically expand the archive. Windows XP has a built-in archive expander. Within the archive are the font files and a Read Me. The Read Me includes basic instructions for installing the fonts. 1.4 Switching Keyboard Layouts In order to be able to input Greek characters in your transcription you will need to add a Greek keyboard layout. 1.4.1 Macintosh OS X 1. Go to System Preferences>International>Input Menu. Scroll down and tick the box next to ‘Greek Polytonic’: At the bottom of the ‘International’ screen, tick ‘Show input menu in menu bar’. A little American or British flag will appear in the right-hand corner of the menu bar at the top of your screen, depending on your default input language. To write in Greek you can either: a) Click on the flag, then click on ‘Greek Polytonic’ and start typing. To revert to writing English open again and click on ‘U.S.’ or ‘British’. Or: b) Use a keyboard shortcut to switch between the American/British keyboard and the Greek Polytonic one. This option is the quickest and easiest and is recommended. The keyboard shortcut is Command + Space. If the keyboard layouts don’t switch when you key this shortcut, you need to change the default settings. Go to System Preferences>Keyboard and Mouse. Scroll down the list of shortcuts and check ‘Input Menu’ and uncheck ‘Spotlight’ (which is the default keyboard shortcut on some systems): 4 This will allow you to switch between the American/British keyboard and the Greek Polytonic one by typing Command + Space.3 It can also be helpful to be able to view the keyboard layouts in order to find which keys relate to which Greek characters.4 To do this, go to System Preferences>International>Input Menu and check ‘Keyboard Viewer.’ To view the keyboard layout, go to the flag on the menu bar and click ‘Show Keyboard Viewer’. If you are in Greek Polytonic mode, the keyboard that appears will show you the position of the various Greek characters on your keyboard. If you press Shift, Shift and Alt, or Alt, while viewing the keyboard layout, the positions of these characters will also be displayed. 1.4.2 Windows Vista 1. Go to Start>Control Panel>Clock, Language, and Region>Change keyboards or other input methods. 2. In the ‘Regional and Language Options’ window, open the ‘Keyboards and Languages’ tab and click ‘Change keyboards’. 3. In the ‘Text Services and Input Languages window, open the ‘General’ tab and click on ‘Add’ under ‘Installed Services’. 4. Scroll down the list of languages and click the little box next to ‘Greek’ and a ‘Keyboard’ checkbox opens. Click the little box next to ‘Keyboard’ and check ‘Greek Polytonic’. Click ‘OK’. 3 If you have more than two keyboard layouts in use, use Command + Space to select previous input source and Command + Option (alt) + Space to select the next input source. 4 General Keystroke tables for Gentium Greek Polytonic can also be found in the Appendix. 5 5. Back on the ‘Text Services and Input Languages’ window, open the ‘Language Bar’ tab. You can select where you wish the Language Bar to appear. The default position is ‘Docked in the taskbar’. To write in Greek you can either: a) Click on the EN icon in the taskbar, then select ‘EL Greek’ and start typing. To revert to writing English click on the EL icon and select EN. Or: b) Use a keyboard shortcut to switch between English (US or UK) keyboard and the Greek Polytonic one. This option is the quickest and easiest and is recommended. The default keyboard shortcut is Left Alt + Shift. If Left Alt + Shift does not work on your computer, go to Start>Control Panel>Clock, Language, and Region>Change keyboards or other input methods. In the ‘Regional and Language Options’ window, open the ‘Keyboards and Languages’ tab and click ‘Change keyboards’. Select the ‘Advanced Key Settings’ tab. Under ‘Hot keys for input languages’ you will see the key sequence required to switch between input languages. 6 1.4.3 Windows XP 1. In the Windows XP standard Start menu, go to Start>Control Panel. In the Windows XP classic Start menu, go to Start>Settings>Control Panel. 2. Double-click ‘Regional and Language Options’. Click the ‘Languages’ tab, and under ‘Text Services and Input Languages’ click ‘Details…’ 3. Under ‘Installed Services’ click ‘Add…’ to go to ‘Add Input Language.’ 4. From the ‘Input language’ drop-down menu, select ‘Greek’. From the ‘Keyboard layout/IME’ drop-down menu select ‘Greek Polytonic’ and click OK. You will be taken back to the ‘Text Services and Input Languages,’ click ‘Apply’. 5. Under ‘Preferences’ click ‘Language Bar…’ Check that ‘Show the Language bar on the desktop’ and ‘Show additional Language bar icons in the taskbar’ have ticks against them and click OK. If they don’t already have ticks against them, tick them and click ‘OK’. 7 6. Back on the ‘Text Services and Input Languages’ box, click ‘Apply’ if necessary. (If ‘Apply’ is very pale there is no need to do this). A little keyboard icon (EN for English) will show on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. To write in Greek you can either: c) Click on the EN icon, then select ‘EL Greek’ and start typing. To revert to writing English click on the EL icon and select EN. Or: d) Use a keyboard shortcut to switch between the English keyboard and the Greek Polytonic one. This option is the quickest and easiest and is recommended. The default keyboard shortcut is Left Alt + Shift. If Left Alt + Shift does not work on your computer, go to Start>Control Panel (or Start>Settings>Control Panel), double click on the ‘Regional and Language Options’, click on the ‘Languages’ tab, ‘Details,’ and under ‘Preferences’ select ‘Key Settings.’ Under ‘Hot keys for input languages’ you will see the key sequence required to switch between input languages. 8 1.4.4 Windows 20005 1. Go to Start>Settings>Control Panel. 2. Double-click ‘Regional Settings’. 3. Click the General tab, click to select the check box next to the appropriate language group you wish to install, and then click Apply. The system will either prompt for a Windows 2000 CD-ROM or access the system files across the network. Once the language is installed, Windows 2000 will prompt you to restart the computer. 4. Again go to Start>Settings>Control Panel. 5. Double-click ‘Regional Settings’. 6. Click the Input Locales tab. 7. In the Input Locales box, click the Greek language, and then click Properties. 8. In the Keyboard Layout box, click the Greek keyboard layout, click OK, and then click OK. 1.5 Character Palette/Map You may want to manually add certain characters to your transcription that are not available on a regular keyboard, such as overlines and underdots.6 In order to do that, you will need to be able to copy and paste them from a palette of characters. 1.5.1 Macintosh OS X 1. Go to System Preferences>International>Input Menu. Tick the box next to ‘Character Palette’ and close box: 2. To view the character palette, click on the American/British flag on the menu bar and click ‘Show Character Palette’. 3. At the top of the ‘Characters’ window, select ‘Code Tables’ from the drop down menu of ‘View’ and select ‘Unicode:’ 5 This information about installing the Greek keyboard layouts using Windows 2000 is from http://www.biblicalgreek.org/links/fonts/keyboard.html. I have not checked the accuracy of this information. 6 Tags, entities and other characters that might be needed for the transcription are also available for copy and paste, see 1.7 Items for Copy and Paste Document. 9