54 lines
7.8 KiB
PHP
54 lines
7.8 KiB
PHP
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<h1 style="margin-bottom: 0px;">Βιβλίον λόγων μὴν ἔχειν ἐθέλω·</h1>
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<h3 style="margin-top: 0px;">τὴν γλῶτταν δὲ γράφειν ἐθέλω.</h3>
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<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0px;">I wish to have a book of words, but I also want to write the language</h3>
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<i style="margin-top: 0px;">Time for a dictionary and Ancient Greek keyboards on Linux</i>
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<p>Perhaps I should preface this by stating these are my own opinions of the dictionary that I bought and that I have by no means been compensated for saying what I shall be saying.</p>
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<p>I have been on the search for a small yet comprehensive-ish dictionary for my Greek studies and have thus been scouring various forums to explore the different options that are available. I'm on a rather tight budget myself, so I was rather hoping to find something that would not put a hole into my wallet, yet it appears as if a large number of Ancient Greek dictionaries have a somewhat higher price-point; this is especially true for the dictionary I have seen many people recommend, namely the LSJ (Liddell & Scott) dictionary. It is, I would venture to say, one of the most comprehensive — if not <em>the</em> most comprehensive — of Ancient Greek dictionaries that can be bought; yet, its price-point is reflective of its comprehensiveness, for a complete volume of LSJ goes for over €150. There exist a number of abridged versions costing between €30 and €50, depending on what kind of abridged version it is and where you buy it, yet that was still a tad too high for me. This is, I believe, especially true since I am by no means an expert in the language yet — and won't be for a long time to come —, so a perhaps more beginner-friendly dictionary would have been in order — and that, I believe, I have found. </p>
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<p>As I was looking through Reddit — a site which, by the by, I tend to have blocked, as I do with all other social media; yet it can, at times, be rather helpful to look through when on the hunt for certain bits of information, hence my unblocking it from time to time —, I came across several people mentioning the Pocket Oxford Classical Greek Dictionary, and it appeared to be exactly what I had in mind. Its price, too, was more than reasonable, costing a mere €13 and I thus immediately decided to buy myself a copy which arrived today. I must admit, though, that I was more than surprised by the package, for the pictures that I saw of it made it seems as if it was a rather bulky yet compact book; what I did not expect, however, was a book the size of a decently-sized novel. It most definitely lives up to its name of being <em>pocket-sized</em>, for it has barely any weight to it and small enough dimensions for you to easily carry it around where ever you go — is that not what you do? carry around a dictionary with you at all times? — so that I had somewhat feared for its complexity.</p>
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<p>Yet my fears, it appears, were unfounded, as it is <em>just</em> the right size for me in terms of complexity. It is laid out in a very pleasing and accessible manner so that finding terms, their gender and declension is an easy task to accomplish. I especially enjoy the list of the 101 most commonly used irregular verbs at the end of the book — yet again, the topic of verbs follows me where ever I dare go and I fear that I will once be dreaming about it; and what nightmares those will be … — which will be most helpful. It <em>does</em> contain some further grammar points, but not enough to be worth mentioning; for a more complete grammar, they do offer the Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek of the same format which I am intending on buying as well — next month, that is. There shall then be a post regarding that. </p>
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<h2>Fumbling around with keyboards</h2>
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<p>But indeed, what use is a dictionary if one is unable to type the words located therein on a computer — something I do quite frequently for creating new flashcards? I had been having this exact problem and finding a keyboard that supports Polytonic — i. e. several tones — Greek on Linux was rather difficult. As some of you may be aware, I am a user of Linux — Manjaro Linux to be exact — and have completely expelled Windows from my private life. My old installation still dwells within some hard-drive I have in my shelf, but it hasn't been used in probably half a year. Unfortunately, however, finding a Polytonic Greek keyboard was a much more difficult task on my Linux installation than it would have been on Windows; for, indeed, Windows comes pre-bundled with such a keyboard, so that you are able to simply install it as you would any other keyboard in the Windows settings. </p>
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<p>This is somewhat different on Linux — actually, <em>drastically</em> so. I am, at present, using Manjaro XFCE and had been using the regular XFCE keyboard managing tool. It did come pre-bundled with a Polytonic keyboard, but for some reason, it didn't work quite as I had expected. I believe the problem was me being unable to put several <em>things</em> on top of the letters (i. e. a breathing mark <em>and</em> an accent would not have been possible) so that I ditched it. Instead, I found <a href="https://keyman.com/" rel="nofollow">Keyman</a> which have a rather impressive selection of keyboard layouts to choose from (even an Ancient Egyptian one I shall have to try out at some point), including one for Polytonic Greek. Unfortunately, no binaries for keyman seem to exist for Manjaro — neither in its official repositories nor in the AUR — so that I was forced to install the program from source which, unfortunately, took a while. Thereafter I was able to open its configuration to download and install the Polytonic keyboard; and upon having finished that, I was required to forego the in-built XFCE keyboard manager and, instead, install <code>ibus</code>. </p>
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<p>Once I was done with all that, I was <em>finally</em> able to use the Greek Polytonic keyboard which allowed me to put several accents and breathing marks on top of a vowel or diphthong; and additionally, it automatically changes <em>kh</em> into <em>χ</em> or <em>th</em> into <em>θ</em> without you having to press their respective buttons. </p>
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<h2>Overall update</h2>
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<p>Before I end this post, I would like to briefly expand upon the work I have been doing — which is not much, I'll admit. I've been working through the third Unit's exercises — with which I'll be done tomorrow, I'd hope —, whereafter I will have to finish the Review and the two Examinations. I will most likely be writing a short analysis of Greek verbs sometime soon so that I can more easily remember the different principal parts of a verb and I will also begin slowly working my way through Xenophon's <em>Anabasis</em>. To do so, I shall start by studying the most commonly used words used in the book as detailed on the first pages of the book I mentioned previously. I have already copied those used on the first page into a <code>.txt</code> file and will be converting it into an Anki set I can study after finishing this post.</p>
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<p>I don't believe I will be beginning Unit 4 this week and, instead, focus rather on revising what I have thus far learnt; especially since the Review and Examinations are coming up next.</p>
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