Koine (Biblical) Greek in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

A Tech article with View Comments posted 7 July 2010.
Tags: greek, hebrew, ibus, kmfl, lucid, scim, ubuntu

I’ve been using Ubuntu for several years with KMFL (Keyboard Mapping for Linux), a project to bring “Keyman-style” keyboard maps to Linux in order to type in Unicode. These are vastly superior to traditional keyboard maps because they allow you to type more naturally.

Under a traditional keymap, you might have to memorize that the letter Q is what you type to get the Greek letter θ (theta). Or, you might have to remember to type the right keys in the right order in order to get diacritical marks to appear in the correct place. Keyman, on the other hand, lets you type things like:

• When you want theta, just type “T H”. The T will first be a tau, but then will change to theta. Same with phi (P H) and psi (P S).
• Breathing marks are typed phonetically, so getting one to appear over an alpha means you type “H A”.
• When you want a sigma, just type an S. The computer will pick whether or not to use the final sigma.
• The final output is Unicode, meaning it will work everywhere forever, not just with some goofy proprietary font produced by a company whose name rhymes with Thigh-bleworks.
• Lots more. Be sure to check out the documentation.

Unfortunately, in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, the input system changed from SCIM (Smart Common Input Method) to iBus (Intelligent Input Bus). This means that my previous guides to getting KMFL working don’t work on Lucid anymore. (Here’s the one for Greek, and here’s the one for Hebrew.)

I couldn’t find documentation for this anywhere, but here’s what worked for me:

1. Follow the directions at packages.sil.org to add the SIL Ubuntu Repository. Important: Substitute “lucid” for “hardy” in those directions.
2. In a terminal, run sudo aptitude update
3. In a terminal, run sudo aptitude install ibus-kmfl
4. Download my modified Koine Greek Keyman file here: scim-greek-koine.tar.gz
5. Create ~/.kmfl and extract GrkPolyComp.KMN to it. Rename that file to GrkPolyComp.kmn (the extension must be lowercase). The interesting thing I’ve learned is that it doesn’t appear to be necessary to compile the file with kmflcomp at all! The KMN file is source code, not compiled code, yet somehow this works.
6. Log out and back in.
7. Go to System > Preferences > iBus Preferences > Input Method
8. Add a new input method, located under “Other,” called “Greek (polytonic precomposed) Unicode”

To use it, toggle the iBus system on and off with Control-space. Alt-Shift-L toggles between different languages. You should have a little keyboard in your indicator panel – if not, go back to the iBus Preferences and the system should ask if you want it activated.

Happy Greeking!

PS – If you’re working on Greek, you might be interested in my Greek irregular verb quiz.

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