On 2013-03-14, leonid baranov wrote:
> But a multilingual multiscript is somewhat different. It may
> look like a rarity in academic community. Even in the larger
> world of written and artistic communications.
> Yet, if you consider a combinatorial space of bilingual pairs,
> it is no longer such a niche. But then it seems meaningful
> to seek for a single uniform multilingual solution.
Yes, of course. This is why the Unicode standard was invented (years after
the invention of TeX).
This changed everything: when I started using LaTeX, it was in order to
be able to type my name and get it printed properly (with Umlaut) while on
study in Scotland where Keyboards and Computers did not support any
non-ASCII characters. It was easier then to write Russian or Greek or
extended Latin with TeX than using all the different code pages.
Nowadays, Unicode makes multi-script documents "dead easy", but TeX lags
behind. Fortunately, it catches up --- with Xe- and LuaTeX.
> Multiscript is just a degenerate case of a "new" language
> with only the script being different, all the rest is same.
I used the term multiscript for one aspect of a multi-language document.
Most of my documents are single-script multi-language documents
(German-English). This is well supported by 8-bit LaTeX also for custom fonts.
> Thus, a multilingual multiscript. Which also seems like
> a least and most natural increment of the original TeX.
Your original question was about the combination of multilingual
documents and custom fonts. Extensions of TeX/LaTeX in these
different dimensions exist (far longer than Unicode):
* NFSS ("inputenc" and "fontenc" packages) set up a "TeX standard" the
font selection,
* "babel" cares for multi-lingual documents.
Combining these orthogonal extensions of course compicates matters by an
order of magnitude.
The "babel" package that is part of every basic LaTeX installation since
LaTeX2e. This means that
* the script,
* automatically generated text,
* hyphenation, and
* typograpic traditions
all are adapted to the specified language.
As the development of the very complex babel package stalled during the
indroduction of the Unicode-aware Xe-/LuaTeX engines, the replacement
"Polyglossia" was created. This solved the problem that babel changes the
font encoding for different languages (required with 8-bit 256 character
fonts) but Unicode-aware TeX engines will then use the TeX fonts -
loosing the advance of Unicode-encoded multi-script fonts.
Polyglossia works well, but unfortunately it has a different API, so that
on the LaTeX level you need \if... constructs to care for use of either
package. Fortunately
* this is no issue with LyX, that will do "the right thing" when generating
the TeX file.
* the new "babel" package will be compatible with Unicode TeX engines and
fonts. http://www.ctan.org/pkg/babel-beta/
> Considering that, do you know if Prof Knuth ever offered
> any insight as to how best to move beyond the limitation
> and towards the multilingual TeX?
It is clear that Prof. Knuth himself will not be evolving TeX any
further. He prefers the stability of a program that does what it was
originally intended to do. Others have taken up the development, though.
The future with the TeX-based new engines. Part for part the LaTeX
packages will adapt or replacements be made. Even now, it is possible to
write documents that work with both engine types and more and more
packages hide the decision (e.g. the new "libertine" package uses either
traditional font setup or the fontspec package to set up the Linux
Libertine fonts and automatically chooses either the TeX-encoded or OTF
version.
On the other hand, work continues on solving the issues of multi-script
custom font documents for traditional TeX engines - see, e.g., the "lgrx"
and "substitutefont" packages.
Günter
