[XeTeX] Greek XeLaTeX

[Apostolos Syropoulos]

> I fully  understand your sentiments, and as you are (I think)
> a non-native speaker of  English who has made the effort to

No I am not a native speaker of English and that's obvious!

> learn a language other than your mother  tongue, your opinion
> is probably more important than mine.  But whilst  standardisation
> does indeed bring many advantages, it also imposes  unnecessary
> entry barriers for those who are not native speakers of  the
> language that the standard imposes.  And I, for one, feel  that
> those barriers should be removed whenever possible.

You have a point, however, let me remind you that if one wants to
study say Greek archeology, he/she must learn ancient Greek. Also,
I think that people who study law need to have a good command of
Latin. Scholars working in theology need to have a good command of
both Greek and Latin. Also, it seems that linguists need to have a basic
understanding of a number of different languages. People wanting to
study art or architecture need to have basic skills in drawing. What am
I trying to say? Simply that there are barriers everywhere. As I said in
my previous message, if one does not feel happy with something he/she
can create something new. For example, StarTeX was a project developed
by someone who wanted high school pupils to be able to use TeX for their
work (see http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb17-2/tb51dag.pdf).
 
>  I genuinely believe that we  should
> be moving towards a more inclusive society, in which each  can
> express his or her ideas in his or her own native language.

Indeed, this a goal set by the EU who wants all Europeans to be fluent in
two EU languages (three, if one includes the mother tongue of each
individual).

> Computers  are the very tools that make this feasible : is it
> not time that we started  to exploit them more fully, for the benefit
> of all ?
 
Einstein once said: Make it simple, but not simpler! And here someone
tries to makes things simpler...

A.S.


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Apostolos Syropoulos
Xanthi, Greece