automatic hyphenation for transliterated sanskrit

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
December 13, 2024
2 replies
689 views

Hello Everyone,

I have to lay out a book in Sanskrit. On the left page transliterated, on the right page in Sanskrit alphabet.
Does anyone know a way to apply automatic hyphenation in transliterated text, correctly following IAST (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration) rules?
I can't find any specific dictionary, and I can't find anything like that in the default InDesign scripts

Thank you
Vincenzo Letta

This topic has been closed for replies.

Joel Cherney

Community Expert

In twenty minutes of searching, the only place where I've seen support for hyphenation of transliterated Sanskrit is in XeTeX. Are you aware of any other application with working hyphenation of transliterated Sanskrit? I can imagine ways to get IAST hyphenation working, but the route of round-tripping through XeTeX feels like a great deal of heavy lifting.

V

vincenzo_5404Author

Participant

Hi Joel,

I had seen that there was this possibility with XeTex, but I wanted to try to stay with Indesign.
I've done some testing with XeTex, they work, I'll probably have to use that software
Thank you

Joel Cherney

Community Expert

I just haven't seen IAST hyphenation implemented anywhere else. It wasn't hard to find the original conversation from the XeTeX mailing list where this hyphenation support was originally implemented, circa 2010. I really can't find any trace of it elsewhere, perhaps because I'm searching in English. But, honestly, who is invested in good hyphenation of Latin-script transliterations of Sanskrit? It would most likely be native English speakers, right? Or native speakers of other languages written in Latin script, at least.

Furthermore, the way that TeX handles hyphenation isn't particularly portable. I've seen discussions of people turning XeTeX hyphenation patterns into Hunspell hyphenation dictionaries, but it also seems like a weighty challenge - for linguists who are fluent in the target language, which I am not.

James Gifford—NitroPress

Legend

It does not appear that there are any Sanskrit support tools for InDesign, from Adobe or any third party. I did a quick search and found many questions like yours, but no good or specific answers. I know next to zip about the Indic languages, but — would one of the other Indic dictionaries do an acceptable job? (In the way a UK English dictionary would do in a pinch for US English?)

The other solution may be to avoid hyphenation on the Sanskrit pages — I don't know if that would be an acceptable choice or not.

V

vincenzo_5404Author

Participant

Hi James,
I am planning a series, and I have already made attempts with other Indian dictionaries, without good results, so the professor who directs this series told me.
 I suggested not to hyphenate, but unfortunately he wants to.
thank you

James Gifford—NitroPress

Legend

I guess... put as politely as I can when I read such arbitrary demands that are not easily supported without an excess of effort — I hope someone besides him (any reader, that is) eventually appreciates the trivial difference. But academics, like amateurs, often make such arbitrary demands and are stubbornly, blissfully ignorant of the difficulties and costs — that's your/our problem.

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