Modern Greek Ibycus Keyboard Layout Variant (AncientGreek)

Modern Greek Ibycus Keyboard Layout Variant

This page does not fully describe "Ibycus Keyboard Layout" features; it presents its Modern Greek Variant only. For a full Layout description, please visit this page.

Greek users who are used to the "Modern Greek Keyboard Layout" and the "Ancient Greek Keyboard Layout" provided by their operating system, will surely have a problem using "Ibycus Keyboard Layout", since several letters positions are different.

This layout variant comes as a solution to the problem; it restores all letter possitions to those defined in the official Greek layouts. Obviously, this means that extensive changes to the original "Ibycus Keyboard Layout" are imposed.

Letters differences^

The letters that differ between the original "Ibycus Keyboard Layout" and this variant are shown in the following table:

Greek Letter	Original Layout	Layout Variant
Theta	q	u
Digamma	v	q
Xi	c	j
Upsilon	u	y
Psi	y	c
Omega	w	v
Final Sigma	j	w

Pre-positive Accentuation^

As already stated, Ibycus is based on post-positive accentuation, which means that one would always type the letter first and then any diacritics to get the desired code-point. This poses a great difficulty for Greek users, since in all modern Greek keyboard layouts post-positive accentuation is used.

In order to answer to this issue, AncientGreek also supports a special case of pre-positive accentuation; typing the English question mark followed by a vowel, will add an acute to this vowel, as shown in the table below.

Char. typed	Char. displayed
;	· (ano teleia)
a	ά (alpha with acute)

This makes the layout compatible to all modern Greek keyboards, in this respect. For example, with this addition, one could use the layout to type modern (i.e. monotonic) Greek text, though other issues still exist in this case.

Layout Implementation^

The following table depicts the "Modern Greek Ibycus Keyboard Layout Variant".

Differences to the origianl "Ibycus Keyboard Layout" are rendered in bold, valid values are in color and old values are enclosed within parenthesis.

Greek Letter	ASCII character (Lowercase)	ASCII character (Uppercase)	Greek Letter	ASCII character (Lowercase)	ASCII character (Uppercase)
Alpha	a	A	Nu	n	N
Beta	b	B	Xi	j (c)	J (C)
Gamma	g	G	Omicron	o	O
Delta	d	D	Pi	p	P
Epsilon	e	E	Rho	r	R
Zeta	z	Z	Sigma	s	S W (J)
Eta	h	H	Tau	t	T
Theta	u (q)	U (Q)	Upsilon	y (u)	Y (U)
Iota	i	I	Phi	f	F
Kappa	k	K	Chi	x	X
Lambda	l	L	Psi	c (y)	C (Y)
Mu	m	M	Omega	v (w)	V (W)
Digamma	q (v)	Q (V)	Stigma	v+	V+
Lunate sigma	j+ (c+)	J+ (C+)	Koppa (archaic)	k+	K+
Sampi	s+	S+
Question mark		?	Ano teleia	;
Diacritics
Key	Unicode name	Order	Key	Unicode name	Order
( Left Parenthesis	Rough breathing (DASIA)	1	' Single quote	Acute (OXIA)	2
) Right Parenthesis	Smooth Breathing (PSILI)	1	` Grave	Grave (VARIA)	2
+ Plus	General modifier (DIERESIS, etc)	1	= Equals	Perispomeni (PERISPOMENI)	2
\| Bar	Iota Subscript (YPOGEGRAMMENI)	3	! Exclamation	(COMBINING DOT BELOW)	3
Other Symbols
Key	Unicode name		Key	Unicode name
` Grave	Grave accent (VARIA)		' Single Quote	Acute accent (OXIA)
``	Open single quote		''	Close single quote / apostrophe
```	Open double quote		'''	Close double quote
. Period	Period		- Dash	Hyphen
..	Two Dot Leader		--	En Dash
...	Ellipsis		---	Em Dash
<	Left Angle Bracket		>	Right Angle Bracket
<<	Left Single Guillemet		>>	Right Single Guillemet
<<<	Left Guillemet		>>>	Right Guillemet
Escaped Symbols
Key	Unicode name		Key	Unicode name
\q (\v)	Lower Greek Numerical Sign		\Q (\V)	Upper Greek Numerical Sign
\y (\u)	Breve		\=	Macron
\[	Open Floor Bracket		\]	Close Floor Bracket
Escaped Symbols by AncientGreek *
Key	Unicode name		Key	Unicode name
\j (\c)	Dagger		\J (\C)	Cross of Jerusalem
\jj (\cc)	Double Dagger		\JJ (\CC)	Cross of Lorraine
\jjj (\ccc)	Orthodox Cross		\!	Exclamation
\(	Left Parenthesis (after a vowel)		\)	Right Parenthesis (after a vowel)
\` (Grave)	Open single quote (after a vowel)		\' (Acute)	Close single quote (after a vowel)
\X	Chi-Ro		w (j) \s	Final Sigma
\b	Greek symbol beta (curled beta)		\+	Plus sign
\e	Lunate epsilon		\ee	Reversed lunate epsilon
\h	Archaic letter heta		\H	Archaic capital letter heta
\k	Greek symbol kappa		\K	Greek capital symbol kappa. (This is actually greek capital kai symbol used as greek capital kappa symbol in AncientGreek)
\m	Greek letter san		\M	Greek capital letter san
\u (\q)	Greek symbol theta		\U (\Q)	Greek capital symbol theta
\w (\j)	Greek letter yot		\S \W (\J)	Greek capital letter yot
\Y (\U)	Greek upsilon with hook symbol		\r	Greek symbol rho
\YY (\UU)	Greek upsilon with acute and hook symbol		\f	Greek symbol phi
\YYY (\UUU)	Greek upsilon with diaeresis and hook symbol		\p	Greek symbol pi
\z	Greek letter sho		\Z	Greek capital letter sho
\w\| (\j\|)	Greek reversed lunate sigma (editorial) symbol		\W\| (\J\|)	Greek capital reversed lunate sigma (editorial) symbol
Extra Letters by AncientGreek *
k++	Greek letter koppa		K++	Greek capital letter koppa
s++	Greek archaic letter sampi		S++	Greek archaic capital letter sampi
q++ (v++)	Greek archaic letter pamphylian digamma		Q++ (V++)	Greek archaic capital letter pamphylian digamma
s\|\|	Greek small dotted lunate sigma (editorial) symbol		S\|\|	Greek capital dotted lunate (editorial) sigma symbol
r\|	Greek rho with stroke symbol		r\|\|	Reference Mark
l\|	Section sign		h+	Greek letter h **

* These symbols are AncientGreek specific. They do not exist in the original Ibycus Keyboard Layout.

** PUA code point, may not render correctly (depends on the font used), may not correctly hyphenate.

Layout Image^

Since "a picture is worth a thousand words", here is an image of the layout. It is not supposed to teach one how to use the layout, but it can be used as a guide, a reminder of specific input.

When the layout is active, one can open the image by typing Ctrl-9 (⌘9 on Mac OS).

It should be noted that the image depicts the key configuration of the original layout, before any key customization is done.

Ancient Greek Language Support
for LibreOffice / OpenOffice