How do I find a Greek keyboard that does Koine Greek?

Greek Koine and Biblical and Medieval Greek
1

I’m not sure Koine Greek is different in its characters and punctuation than modern Greek.

Do I just need to buy a Greek keyboard?

I’m learning Koine. I see that someone posted a question in neatly typed Greek. Complete with accents and diacriticals and whatevers. (I make them; I can’t name them.) How did he do that? It would sure make it easier to post questions.

Yours,
Dora Smith

2

Exactly how you set this up will depend upon the OS you are are on. Are you on Mac, Windows, Linux or something else. But the principle is the same. Install a Polytonic Greek keyboard mapping of some kind that emits Unicode character codes - you don’t need a physical Greek keyboard. Mac and Windows both have such available in what they ship. These keyboards will do what you need for Koine. They both have ways to display the keyboard layout on screen so you can learn the layout. They won’t do more obscure diacritic marks or other rare characters. If you need such things at some point there are other options.

Here’s one explanation of how to set it up on Windows that I think it pretty current : https://www.ctsfw.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Greek-Unicode-Keyboard-Input-Windows-10.pdf

For Mac https://www.ctsfw.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Greek-Unicode-Keyboard-Input-macOS.pdf

Thx
D

3

Thanks, DNL, for that info. I did what the pdf said and it worked except I got a slightly different keyboard (choosing polytonic) than what is shown in the pdf (I cannot post a screenshot).
LATER … After tinkering around with it for 20 minutes, I finally figure out that when I type in Microsoft Word, I get some different characters than when I type right here (using the polytonic keyboard).
Maybe you have an explanation for that?
Mike

4

If the PDF is a little different I’m not that surprised. I have seen a number of variations, presumably due to bug fixes or errors. But they are based on a standard Greek keyboard layout - these polytonics are, though alas conformity between Mac and Windows is wanting. So what platform and you using and I’ll see if I can post a better match for the mapping.

Regarding differing behaviour in Word and a browser that could be down to fonts. Some fonts cannot render the glyphs because they don’t have them. I usually use Cardo or Accordance fonts, but there are others that are fine. So what exactly is the problem you are seeing - what did you type ? what did you see in each env ? and does it change if you use a different font ?

Thx
Daniel

5

I am using Windows 10, with most of the current updates.
Funny thing is now I cannot get my keyboard to make that character (΅ —is that two diacritic marks??) in the upper left of the keyboard. It is now at the Shift W position. Now I get ~ for the upper left key, which is what the on-screen keyboard always showed it should be. But yesterday typing here it produced the ΅.
I will type each row since I cannot paste a screenshot of the on-screen keyboard.
~1234567890-=
`!@#$%^&*()_+ (with shift)
;ςερτυθιοπ
:΅ΕΡΤΥΘΙΟΠ{} (with shift)
ασδφγηξκλ΄ ’
ΑΣΔΦΓΗΞΚΛ¨" (with shift)
ζχψωβνμ,./
ΖΧΨΩΒΝΜ<>? (with shift)

Thanks,
Mike

6

Hi Mike

The ~ should produce a diaeresis with grave - that is a shifted tilde keystroke. Unshifted you should get a diaeresis with acute. During my investigations of this I discovered one rather unpleasant thing about the on-screen keyboard display - it can prevent correct entry of some keystrokes if it is up at the time. This is very unfortunate because it affects the less common strokes where you may actually need the on-screen keyboard. So if something doesn’t display properly I when I’ve got that visible I turn it off and try again. It usually affects things combined with Alt-Gr - the right ALT key.

I’ve never published this doc but last year I went through a study of Windows 10 Greek keyboard mappings and layouts and produced a document on the trials and tribulations - it contains all the mappings. And frankly it’s not ready to be published but I can email you a copy if you PM me an email address. I cannot attach a doc to a PM as far as I know.

Thx
D

7

Hi Mike - if you incorporate the Alt-Gr key (should be on the right-side of the spacebar) either by itself or with the shift key, that usually produces other characters as well.

Most of the time it adds the iota-subscript to a letter:

ᾥ / ῷ / ᾠ / ῲ / ᾢ / ΐ

8

I have been using the “Greek Classical” keyboard provided by Keyman and I am very happy with it. It is easy to use and it is free.
https://keyman.com/