Talk:σήκωμα

Diacritic order

@Fay Freak, I noticed that you always encode macrons above the pitch mark (σά̄κωμα). When I used to work with Ancient Greek, I would do it in the reverse order, and put the macron below the pitch mark: σᾱ́κωμα. That's also how {{subst:chars|grc}} does it, regardless of whether you write {{subst:chars|grc|a_/}} or {{subst:chars|grc|a/_}} (i.e. the output is ᾱ́ in both cases, not ά̄).

I don't know what's the better practice, but it would be good to be consistent. @Erutuon, Mahagaja, thoughts? Canonicalization (talk) 07:52, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

@Canonicalization: The acute should be above the macron, so it must be placed after it. I'd recommend using {{subst:chars|grc|...}} instead of typing a combining macron; the combining macron will not be automatically put in the correct order, whether it's placed after a combined alpha–acute character (as here) or after separate alpha and combining acute, because the combining acute and macron have the same canonical combining class, as can be seen here. {{subst:chars|grc|...}} also fixes the order. — Eru·tuon 09:15, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree the acute should be above the macron, as that's how it's always printed in books. But the other order doesn't affect links: since macrons are automatically stripped regardless, both σᾱ́κωμα (sā́kōma) (with U+1FB1 U+0301) and σά̄κωμα (sá̄kōma) (with U+03AC U+0304) link to [[σάκωμα]]. So it's just a matter of aesthetics, right? —Mahāgaja · talk 10:48, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I didn’t even think that it could be a difference; I assumed that because they are of equivalent order, the browser decides in which order they are put. Is this a displaying mistake of browsers perhaps, to fuse a macron into an acute? Browsers should know how it is printed. Fay Freak (talk) 11:41, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

@Fay Freak: Because the combining macron and acute have the same combining class, they are not reordered and the order is significant. Only diacritics of different combining classes are reordered.

It's a font issue: fonts typically have no glyphs for the Greek α, ι, or υ plus acute plus macron (or breve) because that order of diacritics is distinct from the other possible order and is incorrect, because acute followed by macron should display as acute below macron, macron followed by acute as macron below acute. However, most fonts don't have glyphs for the correct order, both because the audience is small (it is rare for macrons and breves to be used in Greek except in Ancient Greek grammars, and on Wiktionary), and simply because there are no code points for any Greek vowel plus macron or breve plus other diacritics in the Greek Extended block, so omitting these glyphs doesn't impact coverage of Greek code points.

Some examples: New Athena Unicode does have many glyphs for macron or breve plus other diacritics, but doesn't display alpha–acute–macron (ά̄) as alpha–macron–acute (ᾱ́). Surprisingly Gentium Plus, which is supposed to have good support for diacritics, doesn't support either combination of diacritics on Greek characters, while it supports both on Latin ones: ά̄ á̄, ᾱ́ ā́. — Eru·tuon 23:03, 30 January 2020 (UTC)