[tex-hyphen] tl2011-pretest: loadhyph-sr-cyrl.tex still not activated by default?

[Mojca Miklavec]

2011/6/1 Nikola Lečić wrote:
> Mojca Miklavec wrote
>  in <BANLkTinU+0+CMNJmjMLxrpM7Qiu7QX_6+Q at mail.gmail.com>
>  on Wed, 1 Jun 2011 12:43:49 +0200:
>
>> Dear Nikola,
>>
>> Do you want to suggest that Serbian should load both latin+cyrillic
>> patterns in XeTeX & LuaTeX and just latin patterns in pdfTeX? Or do
>> you want to suggest that Cyrillic should be the default?
>
> Hi Mojca,
>
> I understood that conclusion was reached to load both patterns by
> default in Unicode-aware engines. Anyway, IMHO loading both is the most
> convenient for end users. These patterns are disjunct. I've been using
> them in that way for many years.

I agree that it makes sense to load both. So we should load both
patterns for both "serbian" and "serbianc" for XeTeX? What about
LuaTeX? Should we just create a single file called "sr" without any
script and adapt scripts (tlpsrc) accordingly?

> (I think that Karl and Arthur made a decision on how to do this.)

Anyway, it will probably be me the one who will change the script.
Serbian loadhyph is already a big exception to all other languages
(loadhyph-sr-latn.tex loads hyph-sh-latn.tex) and we spent half a day
discussing how to name the patterns (Serbian or Serbo-Croatian).

> As for pdftex, see below.
>
>> (I know at least that there is no default script in Serbian language
>> and people have hard time deciding which one to use. My roommate, a
>> Physicist, said she started hating Cyrillic for she had to switch the
>> keyboard for every formula she wanted to write :)
>
> I'm sorry to hear that. You might want to teach her some Xe(La)TeX and
> TECkit.

I need to convince her to use TeX in the first place, but at the
moment this is not an issue as she will have to write everything in
English anyway.

Besides, latin-to-cyrillic transliteration is not always straightforward.

>> In pdfTeX we cannot load both or at least it would break hyphenation
>> of many words in bad & unexpected ways.
>
> I know. I'd slightly prefer to have Cyrillic as default; I just don't
> know what kind of arguments apply here.

The main issue is that when you use
    \usepackage[serbian]{babel}
it will load serbian.ldf + hyphenation patterns marked "serbian" in
language.dat (that may be changed). And if serbian.ldf loads latin
labels, it makes very little sense to load cyrillic hyphenation
patterns at the same time.

> If babel is the most relevant
> factor for pdftex (and for XeTeX/LuaTeX it isn't), let's decide
> according to the state of Serbian language in babel.

I'm not even sure why latin script is the default in babel. It might
be partially due to the fact that typesetting in Cyrillic is slightly
less straightforward than typesetting in Latin script. If you asked
me, I would require from users to use "serbianc" and "serbianl"
explicitely and not have any default at all.

> If it's relevant what's going on in the real world (what is real
> default script in Serbia, de facto and de jure) then... etc.
>
>> We decided to use Latin because serbian.ldf uses Latin labels. Is
>> there already babel support for Cyrillic Serbian?
>
> Yes, it's possible to use babel with Serbian Cyrillic, at least with
> XeTeX. This is excerpt from one old file of mine (2007), don't know it
> it's relevant nowadays:

One comment: I admit that it was *us* who deliberately changed
hyphenation patterns from Cyrillic to Latin, but the major reason was
the lack of cyrillic serbial.ldf.

> \usepackage{fontspec}
> \usepackage[serbian,greek,english]{babel}
> \def\cyrillicencoding{EU1}
> \let\greektext\relax
>
> along with adding 'serbian xu-srhyphc.tex' to language.dat.

But this will give you Latin "Table 1", "Figure 1", ...

>> In both Babel and Polyglossia you somehow need to decide whether you
>> will use Latin or Cyrillic labels for tables & figures anyway.
>
> I usually have texts with both scripts. It's more important that how
> tables and figures are labeled (I always change these titles by hand
> btw).

Do you change them because:
(a) there are two words with the same meaning  (we have "literatura"
and "bibliografija" and I'm not sure which one sounds better) and you
happen to prefer one of them,
(b) because you want Cyrillic instead of Lation
(c) or for some other reason?

> To sum up: I strongly suggest loading both patterns for XeTeX/LuaTeX.

OK, that can be done and it makes sense.

But another request for you: can you make sure that there will be an
easy way to typeset Serbian in Cyrillic script in pdfTeX and prepare a
short document describing how to typeset Serbian:
- in (pdf)LaTeX in Latin script (including Latin captions)
- in (pdf)LaTeX in Cyrillic script (including Cyrillic captions)
- in XeLaTeX in Latin script
- in XeLaTeX in Cyrillic script
- in LuaLaTeX (optionally since polyglossia probably doesn't support
LuaLaTeX yet)?
This means that someone needs to either translate serbian.ldf or take
an existing one and make sure that it finds a way into TeX Live.

For example I have found this:
   http://sourceforge.net/projects/serbianc/

Mojca

PS: ConTeXt lacks Serbian translations and support as well:
http://minimals.contextgarden.net/current/context/current/tex/context/base/lang-cyr.mkii
(or lang-sla.mkii)
http://minimals.contextgarden.net/current/context/current/tex/context/base/lang-txt.lua