[OS X TeX] Trouble with Cyrillic--Solved!

[Roussanka Loukanova]

On Mon, 4 Feb 2008, Peter Dyballa wrote:

>
> Am 03.02.2008 um 22:20 schrieb Roussanka Loukanova:
>
>> \selectlanguage{russian}
>> Zdes\cyrsftsn{}!
>
> This looks like Latin to me!

This is the good side of this way: One types Latin for what is supposed 
to be in Cyrillic in the tex file. But the typeset output is indeed in 
Cyrillic. Notice that in the preamble I have

\usepackage[ot2enc]{inputenc}
\usepackage[russian,english]{babel}

I find this way very comfortable: one can intermix text in Latin and 
Cyrillic just by preceding it, respectively, with

\selectlanguage{english}
or
\selectlanguage{russian}

When Latin text predominates, the Cyrillic in between is typed with the
command {\cyr ...}.

Almost all Cyrillic letters are in the phonetic correspondence with 
Latin, with the exception of the few special letters, that are 
very annoying to me because I couldn't find the list of the commands 
for them (and, there is a Bulgarian letter that I never get, but it 
should be around).

>
> I was making my tests with real Cyrillic characters. I also updated my format 
> to contain Russian hyphenation patterns and be aware of this language, which 
> made it necessary to install some packages from TeX Live 2007. With LaTeX I 
> can't use a mix of Latin and Cyrillic  it works only with XeTeX.

Russian hyphenation with the phonetic [ot2enc]  used to be a problem. 
Perhaps they have improved it, but I do not know what to update. (And i do 
not need much Russian or Bulagrian typesetting.) Bulgarian hyphenation 
used to be, and most likely continues to be, a problem with these packages.
But if you can live well in LaTeX with phonetic letters pretending to be 
Cyrillic, then one can mix Latin and Cyrillic.

>
> The problems with GNU (or some Carbon) Emacs when using a Cyrillic keyboard 
> can easily be solved: make Cyrillic key-bindings, too!
>
> You won't need them for everything, just for one or two dozens, the number 
> might grow in the future. Since C-x would still be something like C-x, you 
> just need to put some lines like this into your user init file (~/.emacs):
>
> 	(define-key ctl-x-map "" 'save-buffer)
>
> You would need to remember (ah, I think your fingers will do it for you) to 
> press Alt-Ctrl- (therefore I've written before "something like") and then 
> or just press Alt-Ctrl- Alt-Ctrl-! For me it works to bring back the original 
> keyboard layout by pressing the Option or alt or  key. (Have you ever seen 
> this little floating keyboard?)

I'll try all this: it looks good. Thanks.

Roussanka