[XeTeX] POLYGLOSSIA with Hebrew

Gareth Hughes garzohugo at gmail.com
Thu Apr 23 17:39:44 CEST 2009


François Charette wrote:
> sjo a écrit :
>> I have tried doing Hebrew with polyglossia and ran into two problems.
>>
>> 1. In \begin{enumerate}, numbers are arabic, not in Hebrew. I am
>> invoking Hebrew as
>> \begin{hebrew}[numerals=hebrew]. Is there a way to get enumerations to
>> work in Hebrew?
>>
>>   
> Add
> \renewcommand\theenumi{\alph{enumi}}
> in your preamble
> 
>> 2. The date for today shows up 5769 but the 5 is a ה rather than a ש, etc.
>>   
> 
> I get ‫ה׳ןסט‬ which is correct afaik. Note that the ה is followed by a
> Geresh symbol (U+05F3) that separates blocks of three digits. Compare
> the definition of  \@hebrew at numeral in §63.3.1 of the babel
> documentation. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_numerals
> 
> I am aware that there are many ways to write Hebrew numerals, and
> polyglossia only has a pretty basic algorithm. If you are willing to
> submit a patch, I'd be most grateful!
> 
> Best,
> FC

Shouldn't the date 23 April 2009 be displayed as ‫כ״ג באפריל ב׳ט‬,
rather than ‫כגבאפריל ב׳ט‬? That is: a space is missing between the day
numeral and the month name, and gershayim should be between the day
numerals.

The Hebrew date is written ‫כט בניסן ה׳ןסט‬. Again, I would say there
should be gershayim between the day numerals. I would write the current
year (5769) as תשס״ט without writing the leading 5000, or ה׳תשס״ט when
writing it. The version in Polyglossia uses the letter nun sofit to
replace tav-shin, which I think is less common. Perhaps Polyglossia
could offer options whether to use sofit letters or not, and whether to
write the millennium at all in dates (i.e. leave off the leading ה׳).
The Hebrew date is displayed in the top right of Ha'Aretz website
(http://www.haaretz.co.il/) for comparison.

I also notice that the numerals for 15 and 16 should have special forms
to prevent writing parts of the Name — 15 should be ‫ט״ו‬, and 16 should
be ‫ט״ז‬.

Gareth.

-- 
Gareth Hughes

Department of Eastern Christianity
Oriental Institute
Pusey Lane
Oxford
OX1 2LE

+44 (0)1865 610227


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