Beta code
Betacode is a process according to which the characters occurring in ancient Greek texts, i.e. the letters of the Greek alphabet and the diacritical marks of the polytonic spelling, are represented in a reversibly unambiguous manner by characters that are very common on computers. This creates a basis for the exchange of computer-aided ancient Greek texts without the need for a standardized representation of the required Greek characters on the computers involved. After its development by David W. Packard in the 1970s, Betacode quickly became the general standard. The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae was and is one of the most important applications.
In the 1980s, in connection with the creation of a machine-readable text of the Hebrew Bible, a similar transliteration of the Hebrew alphabet and its diacritics was developed, which was then also called Betacode ; in addition also Michigan-Claremont according to the places of activity of the project participants.
At the time Betacode was developed, characters were encoded in different ways on different manufacturers' systems . After the exchange (by sending data carriers) of Betacode texts, these were converted into its internal code on the target computer. The characters of the beta code should therefore be included in as many such internal codes as possible. The distinction between uppercase and lowercase letters was not supported everywhere in all systems of that time or on their input / output devices ( punch cards , line printers , screens) - this is why it is not used in Betacode. Later, ASCII established itself as a standardized code for data exchange. Today, when Unicode is a standardized code for Greek and other scripts with all their characters, Betacode is still used to write texts with the characters on the usual computer keyboard Converters can be converted to Unicode.
Beta code for the Greek script
The following table shows the correspondence between Betacode and Unicode:
| Beta code | a | b | G | d | e | z | H | q | i | k | l | m | n | c | O | p | r | s | j | t | u | f | x | y | w | : | ; | ? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode | α | β | γ | δ | ε | ζ | η | θ | ι | κ | λ | μ | ν | ξ | ο | π | ρ | σ | ς | τ | υ | φ | χ | ψ | ω | · | · | ; |
| Coding examples in Betacode | Example words in beta code | converted to Unicode | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capital letter | * | * a | * b | *G | etc. | * e * s * t * i * n | ΕΣΤΙΝ | ||
| Spiritus lenis | ) | a) | e) | * i) | * w ( | etc. | * e) stin, e) stin | Ἐστιν, ἐστιν | |
| Alcohol asper | ( | * e ( | H( | *O( | u ( | etc. | * w (j, w (j, o (, * h ( | Ὡς, ὡς, ὁ, Ἡ | |
| Acute | / | a / | * a / | e) / | * e (/ | H)/ | etc. | * o (/ te o (fi / loj a) pe / qanen | Ὅτε ὁ φίλος ἀπέθανεν |
| Grave accent | \ | a \ | * a \ | e) \ | * e (\ | H)\ | etc. | o (e) mo \ j kai \ so \ j fi / loj | ὁ ἐμὸς καὶ σὸς φίλος |
| circumflex | = | a = | * a = | i) = | * h (= | u) = | etc. | * a) = r 'o (dou = loj h (= ken; | Ἆρ 'ὁ δοῦλος ἧκεν; |
| Iota subscriptum | | | * a | | a) | | a / | | a = | | h) \ | | etc. | tau / th | th = | xw / ra | | ταύτῃ τῆ χώρᾳ |
| Trema | + | u + | i + / | u + \ | u + = | etc. | qui + / dion, qu% 27i + noj | θυΐδιον, θῠϊνος | |
| Length ( macron ) | % 26 | a% 26 | * i% 26 | u% 27 | etc. | found% 26ri / betw | γεφῡρίζω | ||
| Brevity ( breve ) | % 27 | a% 27 | * i% 27 | u% 26 | etc. | ge / fu% 26ra% 27 | γέφῡρᾰ | ||
Beta code for the Hebrew script
| - | ׀ | ׃ | א | ב | בּ | ג | ד | ה | ו | ז | ח | ט | י | ך | כ | ל | ם | מ | ן | נ | ס | ע | ף | פ | ץ | צ | ק | ר | ש | שׁ | שׂ | ת |
| - | 05 | 00 | ) | B. | B. | G | D. | H | W. | Z | X | + | Y | K | L. | M. | N | S. | ( | P | C. | Q | R. | # | $ | & | T | |||||
| vocal | - | a | e | i | O | u |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Schwa | : | |||||
| Chataf | : A | : E | : F | |||
| short | A. | E. | I. | F. | U | |
| long | F. | " | O | |||
| ml | FH | "Y | IY | OW | W. |
According to the table above, the consonants are represented by Latin capital letters and a few other characters. It does not matter whether they have a consonantic sound value or occur as matres lectionis . The Dagesch is represented as a point regardless of its function, as shown in an example. The representation of the diacritics for the vowels are in the table on the left, the bottom line of which contains frequent combinations of vowel marks and mater lectionis . Other diacritics, especially the Teamim , are each represented by a pair of decimal digits, as in the table above Paseq and Sof pasuq (the second and third characters). One and two asterisks denote Ketib and Qere (in the original footnotes or marginal notes), the question mark a new line in an original manuscript and the slash the dividing point between the word root and affix (not available in the original). Further code characters can be found in the documentation (see web links ).
example
The Bible passage in the example is Ecclesiastes 12:12.
Hebrew text, vocalized and accented
וְיֹתֵ֥ר מֵהֵ֖מָּה בְּנִ֣י הִזָּהֵ֑ר עֲשׂ֨וֹת סְפָרִ֤ים הַרְבֵּה֙ אֵ֣ין קֵ֔ץ וְלַ֥הַג הַרְבֵּ֖ה יְגִעַ֥ת בָּשָֽׂר׃
| ויתר | W / YTR KAI PERISSON | και περισσον |
| מהמה | M / HMH E) C AU) TW = N | ἐξ αὐτῶν |
| בני | BN / Y UI (E / MOU | υἱέ μου |
| הזהר | HZHR FU / LACAI | φύλαξαι |
| עשׂות | (& WT POIH = SAI | ποιῆσαι |
| ספרים | SPRYM BIBLI / A | βιβλία |
| הרבה | HRBH POLLA / | πολλά |
| אין | ) YN OU) KE) / STIN | οὐκ ἔστιν |
| קץ | QC PERASMO / S | περασμός |
| ולהג | W / LHG KAI MELE / TH | και μελέτη |
| הרבה | HRBH POLLH | πολλη |
| יגעת | YG (T KO / PWSIS | κόπωσις |
| בשׂר | B&R SARKO / S | σαρκός |
Same as beta code
W:/YOT"71R M"/H"73M.FH B.:N/I74Y HIZ.FH"92R? (:A&O63WT S:PFRI70YM HAR:B."H03 )"74YN Q"80C W:/LA71HAG HAR:B."73H Y:GI(A71T B.F&F75R00?
German transcription of the pronunciation
wejoter mehemma beni hisaher asot sefarim harbe en kez welahag harbe jediat bazaar
German (standard translation)
By the way, my son, let me warn you! There is no end to all the book-writing, and a lot of studying tires the body.
Parallel Hebrew and Greek text, both in the respective beta code
In the right margin (middle column of the table) the same verse from the parallel text of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint is shown. The word order in the two languages does not always permit such a word-wise juxtaposition as here.
Web links
- Convert ancient Greek texts optionally Betacode ↔ Unicode
- M. Neuhold: Coding of Greek
- The TLG Beta Code Manual
- Beta Code to Unicode Converter
- Coding for Transliteration of Hebrew, Greek, Coptic for CCAT / CATSS / TLG materials
- TanakhML Project: MC Diacritics
- Software component for bidirectional conversion to Python