Help with a Greek word please

[AlexBell]

I am working on Peter Ibbetson by George du Maurier for the MobileRead library, and have come across a Greek word which du Maurier makes a fuss of. Project Gutenberg transliterates the word as 'Anagkae'.

In an original version of the book on the Internet Archive the word shows as the attached Capture.JPG. I made this word in HTML as Αναγκη but this does not have the initial single quote mark or the accent over the small alpha.

Is it necessary to have the single quote mark and the accent? If so, how could I do that?

What does the word mean?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

I am working on Peter Ibbetson by George du Maurier for the MobileRead library, and have come across a Greek word which du Maurier makes a fuss of. Project Gutenberg transliterates the word as 'Anagkae'.

In an original version of the book on the Internet Archive the word shows as the attached Capture.JPG. I made this word in HTML as Αναγκη but this does not have the initial single quote mark or the accent over the small alpha.

Is it necessary to have the single quote mark and the accent? If so, how could I do that?

What does the word mean?

When I did a search on Αναγκη, the Wikitionary page showed it with the accent on the lower case alpha. The translation seems to be "necessity" or "need" with a sideline in as a need to defecate or urinate.

As for the polytonic accents? That's way past my level.

[lumpynose]

Can you use a Greek font? For example, GFS Didot:

https://greekfontsociety-gfs.gr/type...h_21st_century

I got to the above via:

http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/fonts-european.html

And

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Font_Society

[GrannyGrump]

@Alex -- You might embed a font with Greek characters (subsetting to reduce file size), and put the Greek text in a span to call that font.
I have used fonts from the Greek Font Society in this way.
They also happen to be attractive fonts for English text as well.

https://greekfontsociety-gfs.gr/

EDIT TO ADD: Well, I was too late to the party!

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

Is it necessary to have the single quote mark and the accent?

Both are required to write Ancient Greek words. Since most Latin fonts contain these characters, you shouldn't have to embed a font.

Ἀνάγκη

ἀνάγκη

As for the transliteration, ἀνάγκη, is usually transliterated as Ananke, because the Gamma in this word is pronounced like the ng in sing.

[AlexBell]

Thanks to you all.

I should have mentioned that I made the word directly in html: Αναγκη

I'm a bit wary about using the special fonts that people have mentioned. Will every ebook reader be able to use those fonts? My Sony reader has only a few fonts available. I've never tried to use any other fonts when designing an ebook. I guess I won't find out until I try.

Can anyone point me to a site which will give the &# numbers for the characters? I got them from Elizabeth Castro's HTML, XHTML & CSS.

How did you get the words, Doitsu? That's exactly what I want.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

I'm a bit wary about using the special fonts that people have mentioned. Will every ebook reader be able to use those fonts?

Just copy the word into your ebook and test it with your readers. Most of them should display it correctly.

Originally Posted by AlexBell

Can anyone point me to a site which will give the &# numbers for the characters?

You don't need to use numerical HTML entities, because if a font doesn't contain these glyphs, specifying them as numeric HTML entities won't make a difference.

Ἀνάγκη contains the following accented Greek letters:

'GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI' (U+1F08)

'GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH TONOS' (U+03AC)

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

@Alex -- You might embed a font with Greek characters (subsetting to reduce file size), and put the Greek text in a span to call that font.

Also, not much information has changed since the (bi-annual?) AlexBell Greek posts:

2016: Help with accented Greek Alpha please

2018: Help with Greek please

Lots of info in there: fonts, how to code it properly (for TTS), sites to help you input polytonic Greek characters, [...].

Not much new to say, it's the same ol' way it's always been.

I even use a lot of the same exact resources I used back in 2013:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...22#post2533522

Originally Posted by AlexBell

I'm a bit wary about using the special fonts that people have mentioned. Will every ebook reader be able to use those fonts? My Sony reader has only a few fonts available. I've never tried to use any other fonts when designing an ebook. I guess I won't find out until I try.

If anything, just apply the font to a very specific "greek" class, and then subset the font.

SIL makes great fonts, and even have one focused on Greek called Galatia SIL:

https://software.sil.org/Galatia/

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Also, not much information has changed since the (bi-annual?) AlexBell Greek posts

Sounds like me, although with me it'd more likely be bi-monthly.

[mziegler]

Is it necessary to have the single quote mark and the accent?

That depends on which language is used in that book, ancient greek or one of the modern variants dimotiko (common greek) or katharevousa (very rarely used nowadays). In the modern forms of greek all intonation marks were reduced to the one on the second alpha in 1982. So nowadays the word would be spelled with just the second intonation: ανάγκη.
If you want to use the original spelling that du Maurier used you would need the first intonation as well.

[AlexBell]

Thanks.

[AliceWonder]

Originally Posted by DNSB

As for the polytonic accents? That's way past my level.

Palatino Linotype has excellent support for polytonic greek.

I'm sure by now there are some free fonts that do as well, but back in 2002 when I had to stuff with polytonic Greek - Palatino Linotype was the only font I could find that was both widely available (most Windows systems have it already) and where it looked good.