If you're looking for a way to represent majuscule text in an assignment like, say, a text-critical paper, here's some hints on how to do it.
You'll use GFS Jackson for the majuscule text and GentiumAlt for the bar written above certain contractions.
Take for instance the opening verse of Mark's gospel: Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ υἱοῦ θεοῦ, which in majuscule script would be: ΑΡΧΗΤΟΥΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΥΙΥΧΥΥΥΘΥ.
For instance, say you want to achieve the nomen sacrum for Ἰησοῦ. You need the letters ΙΥ and a combining overbar. Position your insertion point between the iota and upsilon and then insert the overbar (see below on how to do it), then after the upsilon and insert the overbar. The idea is that the overbar is overstriking, meaning that it needs to be inserted after the character over which you want it to appear.
You may find that a single overbar may look just as good (considering that the nomina sacra in Codex Sinaiticus are not always positioned precisely), though in my HTML above I've used one over each letter.
The problem is, there is no easy keyboard combination to achieve the line written above the contraction. The workaround is to insert unicode character 0305 (COMBINING OVERBAR).
What you're trying to do is insert unicode character 0305 (COMBINING OVERLINE). The short answer is Windows: Character Map (charmap.exe); Mac: Character Viewer. This where the Gentium font comes in, because you'll want to use it for the overbar.
Get the Fonts
For maximum effectiveness there are two fonts you'll need:You'll use GFS Jackson for the majuscule text and GentiumAlt for the bar written above certain contractions.
Preparing to Uncialize
A preliminary note about pasting: You will want to paste unformatted text to avoid unwanted character formatting and (especially if you’ve copied from a website) hyperlinks.- Paste your text from a Bible software. For best results, set your Bible software to strip accents. Consult the Preferences or Options or Tools section of your software for those settings. If you don't have a Bible software, you can get the unicode text from the German Bible Society. The Unbound Bible from Biola has some options for getting an unaccented Greek text, too. And more recently there is the SBL Greek New Testament
- If you’ve not already stripped accents, replace each accented (or breathing-marked [what is the appropriate adjective to use here?]) character with its corresponding unaccented character.
- Change case so that all characters are uppercase. If you don’t, GFS Jackson will not display the sigma (the moon-shaped or lunate sigma) properly.
- Delete all spaces between words. You can use Find/Replace to do this: just put a space in the “Find What” box, and make sure nothing appears in the “Replace with” box.
- Delete all brackets and punctuation.
- Adjust the paragraph margins to make the lines about 10–15 characters in length. Get enough of the text to create about 3–5 lines worth of text.
Nomina Sacra
Abbreviations or contractions of very commonly used names, called nomina sacra ("sacred names" singular nomen sacrum) regularly occur in the text. See the Wikipedia article on nomina sacra for a convenient list and the manuscripts in which these occur.Take for instance the opening verse of Mark's gospel: Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ υἱοῦ θεοῦ, which in majuscule script would be: ΑΡΧΗΤΟΥΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΥΙΥΧΥΥΥΘΥ.
For instance, say you want to achieve the nomen sacrum for Ἰησοῦ. You need the letters ΙΥ and a combining overbar. Position your insertion point between the iota and upsilon and then insert the overbar (see below on how to do it), then after the upsilon and insert the overbar. The idea is that the overbar is overstriking, meaning that it needs to be inserted after the character over which you want it to appear.
You may find that a single overbar may look just as good (considering that the nomina sacra in Codex Sinaiticus are not always positioned precisely), though in my HTML above I've used one over each letter.
The problem is, there is no easy keyboard combination to achieve the line written above the contraction. The workaround is to insert unicode character 0305 (COMBINING OVERBAR).
Inserting the Overbar
The folks at INTF and the International Greek Testament Project put together a pdf document in their resources section for transcription conventions. These instructions are not for how to to majuscule text, but they'll show you along the way how to get the overbar character on both Mac and Windows platforms. Have a particular look a pages 4 through 11 for the instructions.What you're trying to do is insert unicode character 0305 (COMBINING OVERLINE). The short answer is Windows: Character Map (charmap.exe); Mac: Character Viewer. This where the Gentium font comes in, because you'll want to use it for the overbar.
An Applescript for Microsoft Word
Here's a script in Applescript you can copy to use. See my blog entry on autocorrect entries for an idea of where to save this script. I recommend using it in a new document where the only text is what you want to convert to majuscule text. This script manipulates only the selected text. The idea is to paste the text from your favorite Bible software, select the text, then run the script.
-- script to change to an uncialized text
property accented : {"ά", "ὰ", "ἁ", "ἀ", "ἅ", "ἃ", "ἄ", "ἂ", "ἆ", "ἇ", "ᾀ", "ᾁ", "ᾂ", "ᾃ", "ᾄ", "ᾅ", "ᾆ", "ᾇ", "ᾰ", "ᾱ", "ᾲ", "ᾳ", "ᾴ", "ᾶ", "ᾷ", "έ", "ὲ", "ἑ", "ἐ", "ἕ", "ἓ", "ἔ", "ἒ", "ή", "ὴ", "ἡ", "ἥ", "ἣ", "ἤ", "ἢ", "ἦ", "ἧ", "ᾐ", "ᾑ", "ᾒ", "ᾓ", "ᾔ", "ᾕ", "ᾖ", "ᾗ", "ῂ", "ῃ", "ῄ", "ῆ", "ῇ", "ί", "ὶ", "ἱ", "ἰ", "ἵ", "ἳ", "ἴ", "ἲ", "ῖ", "ἶ", "ἷ", "ΐ", "ῒ", "ῐ", "ῑ", "ῗ", "ό", "ὸ", "ὁ", "ὀ", "ὅ", "ὃ", "ὄ", "ὂ", "ῥ", "ύ", "ὺ", "ὑ", "ὐ", "ὕ", "ὓ", "ὔ", "ὒ", "ῦ", "ὖ", "ὖ", "ΰ", "ῢ", "ῠ", "ῡ", "ῧ", "ώ", "ὼ", "ὡ", "ὠ", "ὥ", "ὣ", "ὤ", "ὢ", "ῶ", "ὦ", "ὧ", "ᾠ", "ᾡ", "ᾢ", "ᾣ", "ᾤ", "ᾥ", "ᾦ", "ᾧ", "ῲ", "ῳ", "ῴ", "ῷ", "ώ", "έ", "ί", "ά", "ύ", "ʼ", ","}
property unaccented : {"α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "α", "ε", "ε", "ε", "ε", "ε", "ε", "ε", "ε", "η", "η", "η", "η", "η", "η", "η", "η", "η", "η", "η", "η", "η", "η", "η", "η", "η", "η", "η", "η", "η", "η", "ι", "ι", "ι", "ι", "ι", "ι", "ι", "ι", "ι", "ι", "ι", "ι", "ι", "ι", "ι", "ι", "ο", "ο", "ο", "ο", "ο", "ο", "ο", "ο", "ρ", "υ", "υ", "υ", "υ", "υ", "υ", "υ", "υ", "υ", "υ", "υ", "υ", "υ", "υ", "υ", "υ", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ω", "ε", "ι", "α", "υ", "", ""}
tell application "Microsoft Word"
set myRange to text object of selection
set myFind to find object of selection
tell myRange
set case to lower case
end tell
repeat with i from 1 to number of items in accented
set find_what to item i of accented
set this_item to item i of unaccented
tell myFind
clear formatting
tell myFind's replacement to clear formatting
end tell
tell myFind
set content to find_what
set content of myFind's replacement to this_item
execute find replace replace all
end tell
end repeat
set theFind to find object of selection
tell theFind
clear formatting
set content to ""
set match all word forms to false
set match case to false
set match whole word to false
set match wildcards to false
tell replacement of theFind
clear formatting
set content to ""
end tell
end tell
end tell