Re: Smart quotes for Greek (questions for a possible patch)

[Protesilaos Stavrou]

On 2021-08-16, 00:28 +0300, mvar <mvar.40k@gmail.com> wrote:

> Juan Manuel Macías <maciaschain@posteo.net> writes:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I would like to submit a patch to add smart quotes for Greek in
>> `org-export-smart-quotes-alist', but I have a couple of questions.
>>
>> First of all, I am not a native speaker of Greek but of Spanish, so I
>> would also like to have the opinion of some Greek native speaker, to see
>> if my solutions are correct.
>>
>> The second question concerns the second-level quotation marks for Greek.
>> The first level ones are the same as the Spanish or French quotes
>> (without the extra space of French): «», so no problem. I follow here
>> the rule that Yannis Haralambous explains in "From Unicode to
>> Typography, a Case Study: the Greek Script" (1999, p. 20:
>> http://web.archive.org/web/20120229131933/http://omega.enstb.org/yannis/pdf/boston99.pdf).
>>
>> According to Haralambous, on the second-level quotation marks (the
>> emphases are mine):
>>
>> #+begin_quote
>>
>> Also interesting is the case of the second level quotes. Here, quotes of
>> the size and shape of the English ones are used, but the opening quotes
>> are inverted, similar in form to raised small round guillemets [...].
>> Fortunately these quotes are provided by the Unicode standard (*U+201F*
>> and U+201D, the latter being the same closing double quotes as in
>> English); *the author knows no other language in which this combination
>> of double quotes might be used*.
>>
>> #+end_quote
>>
>>
>> So the problem is in the character U+201F (assuming Haralambous is
>> right). For the keywords `:utf8' and `html' no problem. But I don't know
>> what to put in `:latex' or in `:texinfo':
>>
>> #+begin_src emacs-lisp
>> (secondary-opening :utf-8 "‟" :html "&#8223;;" :latex "??" :texinfo "??")
>> #+end_src
>>
>> In fact, I think latex2e has no command or shorthand predefined for this
>> character (see https://ibb.co/ZBGmwYP). There would be no problem with
>> LuaTeX and XeTeX. But this character would be difficult to obtain in
>> pdfTeX even using inputenc with the utf8 option.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Juan Manuel
>
> hi Juan,
>
> i can confirm the «» characters are the proper ones for the first level
> of quoting..Now about second level, personally i haven't seen such nesting in
> ages but IIRC they should be the ones (or *very* similar) in the linked image 
> you posted ->
> \textquotedblleft and \textquotedblright. I've no idea how these
> translate to UTF. Note that the standard greek keyboards & keymaps do not have
> any of these characters mapped by default (not even «» ), most people use the 
> standard
> english double/single quotes, at least in electronic writing (articles,
> daily communication etc).
> Protesilaos (cc) might have a better view on this matter.
>
> cheers,
> Michalis

Hello Michalis, Juan Manuel,

[ I had no access to a computer and could not get to you sooner.  Expect
  timely replies from now on. ]

The first level quotes are indeed «».  For the other two, I have to rely
on what I have encountered before, namely, that the second level is
denoted with double curly quotes “” and third with single curly quotes
‘’.

I have come across those in EU documents.  There is a style guide for
the European Institutions.[1][2][3]

I do not know latex notation to help you with the technicalities.
Here are the unicode points:

    | « | U+00AB |
    | » | U+00BB |
    | “ | U+201C |
    | ” | U+201D |
    | ‘ | U+2018 |
    | ’ | U+2019 |

All the best,
Protesilaos

[1] Quotes: <http://publications.europa.eu/code/el/el-4100107el.htm>.
[2] General info: <http://publications.europa.eu/code/el/el-4100000.htm>.
[3] Main portal: <http://publications.europa.eu/code/el/el-000100.htm>.


-- 
Protesilaos Stavrou
https://protesilaos.com