Unidentified Greek Letter (in “echo”)

[kdejute]

Good day! I'm reposting this from the Literary Braille forum, per Saralyn's request.

We're working on a book on echolocation. It's to be transcribed in literary braille. Will you please take a look at the attached image and tell us how to braille the circled material? The first character is giving us particular trouble.

Thank you in advance for your help.
--Kyle

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[kdejute]

First, I strongly recommend that for clarity, ignore the double caps and braille this paragraph with normal capitalization. The first letter of that Greek word that is causing you the grief is actually a lower case eta with certain accents followed by the remainder of the word in upper case Greek letter, I guess to match the rest of the paragraph. Just use regular caps.

That first Greek letter is eta with a circumflex, which looks like a tilde, but it is called circumflex as used in Greek. As with most foreign language accented letters, it is brailled as a single braille character. That other little mark below the circumlex is called a smooth breathing mark. This is a type of diacritic symbol used in Greek. The indicator for this symbol precedes the letter. The rest of the Greek word is simply the letters chi, omicron, and sigma. The letters in parentheses that follow are the English pronunciation.

I have attached a .pdf that explains how to do the Greek and the special symbols that should be listed. You can list the symbols either right there, preceding this text or on the Special Symbols page of the volume, whichever you feel is appropriate.

This turned out to be a little more complicated than these things usually are. Please let us know if there are any further questions.

--Joanna
edited by joannavenneri on 12/6/2014

[joannavenneri]

Thank you, Joanna!

Just two more questions:

1) Should we use the letter indicator before the Greek word? Like so: [simbraille];8<&oe[/simbraille]
2) Could you please tell us where you found the braille symbol for the Greek smooth breathing mark?

--Kyle
edited by Kyle Transcriber on 12/8/2014

[joannavenneri]

Definitely NO on the letter sign. I would go so far as to say don't even think about it. That is because the letter sign is used for a letter(s) that means a letter. THIS letter is part of a word. The special symbols list tells the reader exactly what the symbols mean.

I used the latest edition of World Braille Usage and the NBA Interim Manual for Foreign Language Braille Transcription.

Please let me know if you need any further information.

--Joanna

[kdejute]

Thank you, thank you. You've been a huge help.

Just a small note: Is it possible that your finger slipped when entering the braille symbol for "smooth breathing"? I ask because World Braille Usage and the NBA Interim Manual for Foreign Language Braille Transcription both show the symbol for smooth breathing as [simbraille]0[/simbraille] instead of [simbraille]8[/simbraille].

--Kyle

[kdejute]

Ack. That was not my finger, that was my brain. You are absolutely correct. I'll fix my copy now and repost it.

Thank YOU for catching this and letting me know.

It's all Greek to me.

--Joanna

--

[joannavenneri]

Here is the corrected file. Sorry for the mistake.

--Joanna

[kdejute]

Well, it's the thread that just won't end. I'm afraid I have one more thing to add to this discussion.

Should the [simbraille]e[/simbraille] in [simbraille]0<&oe[/simbraille] actually be [simbraille]s[/simbraille] because it is a SIGMA?

We were revisiting this for QC purposes, and this question finally occurred to us.

Thank you, again, for your time and help.
–Kyle

[joannavenneri]

Yes indeed. It should be [simbraille]s[/simbraille] as you have it. The dot assignment 234 for Greek signma is the same as it is for English s and the special symbol listing for the Greek letters should also be modified. I'm very sorry for the mistake and very glad you caught it.

--Joanna

[joannavenneri]

Lovely. Thank you for the quick and clear response, Joanna!

–Kyle

[joannavenneri]

Thank you for your patience. I realize that I will never make another mistake again since I've used my lifetime quota on this post. What a relief.

--Joanna

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