Beta Code
Beta Code was a method of representing, using only ASCII characters, the characters, accents, and formatting found in ancient Greek texts (and other ancient languages). Its aim was to be not merely a romanization of the Greek alphabet, but to represent faithfully a wide variety of source texts – including formatting as well as rare or idiosyncratic characters. For most applications, it has been obsoleted by unicode.
Beta Code was developed by
Encoding
Greek alphabet
Upper case | Beta Code | Character name | Lower case | Beta Code |
---|---|---|---|---|
Α | *A | Alpha |
α | A |
Β | *B | Beta |
β | B |
Γ | *G | Gamma | γ | G |
Δ | *D | Delta | δ | D |
Ε | *E | Epsilon | ε | E |
Ϝ | *V | Digamma | ϝ | V |
Ζ | *Z | Zeta |
ζ | Z |
Η | *H | Eta |
η | H |
Θ | *Q | Theta | θ | Q |
Ι | *I | Iota | ι | I |
Κ | *K | Kappa | κ | K |
Λ | *L | Lambda | λ | L |
Μ | *M | Mu | μ | M |
Ν | *N | Nu | ν | N |
Ξ | *C | Xi | ξ | C |
Ο | *O | Omicron | ο | O |
Π | *P | Pi | π | P |
Ρ | *R | Rho |
ρ | R |
Σ | *S | Medial Sigma | σ | S, S1 |
Final Sigma | ς | S, S2, J | ||
Ϲ | *S3 | Lunate Sigma | ϲ | S3 |
Τ | *T | Tau | τ | T |
Υ | *U | Upsilon | υ | U |
Φ | *F | Phi |
φ | F |
Χ | *X | Chi | χ | X |
Ψ | *Y | Psi |
ψ | Y |
Ω | *W | Omega | ω | W |
Notes
- Instead of upper-case Latin letters, lower-case Latin letters may also be used (e.g. a for α and *a for Α).
- The TLG Beta Code Manual uses upper-case ASCII letters to represent Greek letters. A variant (used by the Perseus Project) uses lower-case ASCII letters instead. In both cases, the unadorned ASCII letter represents a lower-case Greek letter, and an asterisk must be added to indicate an upper-case Greek letter.
- In general, one encoding character S for Greek sigma is sufficient; it is interpreted as a final sigma at the end of words or when followed by punctuation, and as a medial sigma in other positions. In cases where this auto-disambiguation is not correct, the specific codes S1 and S2 are available.
- Some representations use J for the final sigma and S for the medial sigma.
Punctuation
Punctuation | Beta Code | Name |
---|---|---|
. | . | Period |
, | , | Comma
|
· | : | Colon (Ano Stigme) |
; | ; | Question Mark |
’ | ' | Apostrophe |
‐ | - | Hyphen |
— | _ | Dash |
ʹ | # | Numeral (Keraia) |
The character ' is used both for encoding an apostrophe and for adding a metrical breve to a vowel. The intention is disambiguated because the apostrophe is used in Greek only for elision, which normally occurs after a consonant.
Accents and diacritics
Diacritic | Beta Code | Name | Examples | Coded as |
---|---|---|---|---|
̓ | ) | Smooth breathing |
ἐν | E)N |
̔ | ( | Rough breathing |
ὁ, οἱ | O(, OI( |
́ | / | Acute accent | πρός | PRO/S |
͂ | = | Circumflex accent | τῶν | TW=N |
̀ | \ | Grave accent | πρὸς | PRO\S |
̈ | + | Diaeresis | προϊέναι | PROI+E/NAI |
ͅ | | | Iota subscript | τῷ | TW=| |
̄ | & | Macron | μαχαίρᾱς | MAXAI/RA&S |
̆ | ' | Breve | μάχαιρᾰ | MA/XAIRA' |
These are normally postfix operators, as in the examples above, but for capitalized words, accents come between the * and the letter. The documentation does not otherwise define a required or canonical order for accents. In some data sources, breathing is normally seen before a tonal accent,[3] and one implementation defines a canonical order of breathing, accent, iota subscript.[4] In some implementations, the ordering of the accents can determine the arrangement of the combining characters after conversion to unicode.[5] Many implementations do not implement macronization.
References
- ^ A Beta to Unicode reference guide has been developed by the TLG project (http://www.tlg.uci.edu/encoding/quickbeta.pdf)
- ^ "Perseus Help and Information Center". www.perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 2022-12-26.
- ^ Crane, Morpheus stem library, https://github.com/perseusdl/morpheus
- ^ https://github.com/perseids-tools/beta-code-rb/tree/master/vendor/beta-code-json
- ^ Paul Hardy, beta2uni utility