A note on Arabic names in bibliographies and indices

A note on Arabic names in bibliographies and indices

[Idris Samawi Hamid ادريس سماوي حامد]

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Dear Syndicate,

The current bibliography handler uses the following for authors:

\type{\author[junior]{firstnames}[inits]{von}{surname}}

Now in Arabic we have something similar to the 'von' field: the definite  
article 'al-', 'ibn', etc. Just as with 'von' we want to ignore them in  
the alphabetical sorting. [On the other hand, ConTeXt cannot currently  
sort its own bbl files alphabetically]. See the linked picture for a  
real-life example (the top-right of the page contains both Dutch and  
Arabic examples):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rnimlactrlqz6ak/arabic-dutch-bib.jpg?dl=0

Now the {von} field works for these Arabic prefixes, but there is an  
issue: There can be no space between 'al-' and what follows (e.g.  
'al-Haq'). But the {von} field by default adds a space (von Corbin). So  
what to do? One solution is to use \setuppublicationlist[vonsep=] (see  
also attached):

==========
\starttext
\setuppublications[alternative=apa]
\setuppublicationlist[vonsep=]

\startpublication[k=corbin81,
                   t=book,
                   a=Corbin,
                   y=1981,
                   s=Corbin81]
\author[]{Henry}[H.]{von }{Corbin}
\title{The Concept of Comparative Philosophy}
\pubname{Golgonooza Press}
\city{Ipswich, United Kingdom}
\pubyear{1981}
\stoppublication

\startpublication[k=haq,
                   t=book,
                   a=Haq,
                   y=1994,
                   s=Haq94]
\author[]{Syed Nomanul}[S.]{al-}{Haq}
\title{Names, Natures, and Things}
\pubname{Kluwer}
\city{Dordrecht}
\pubyear{1994}
\stoppublication

\startpublication[k=ragep93,
                   t=book,
                   a={Ragep},
                   y=1993,
                   s=FJRg93]
\author[]{F.~J.}[F.~J.]{ibn al-}{Ragep}
\title{Memoir on Astronomy}
\pubname{Springer Verlag}
\city{New York}
\pubyear{1993}
\stoppublication

\placepublications [criterium=all] % inherits from \setuppublications
% \completepublications[criterium=cite] % only works with criterium=all
\stoptext
==========

\setuppublicationlist[vonsep=] kills the space after the prefix, but that  
means that for every 'von', 'van', 'abu', and the like we have to add the  
space manually in the {von} field (as in the above example).

If we don't want to use \setuppublicationlist[vonsep=] then we have to  
define a command for 'al-' that gobbles the space:

% \define \GobbleSpace{\ignorespaces}
% \define \Al{al-\GobbleSpace}

If one is using lots of Arabic names and few, e.g., Dutch names, then  
using the [vonsep=] approach seems better. But in the upcoming bib module  
we may want a better solution so that bbl files can be more consistent and  
portable. Any thoughts are appreciated, and

Best wishes
Idris
-- 
Idris Samawi Hamid
Professor of Philosophy
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523

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Re: A note on Arabic names in bibliographies and indices

[Keith J. Schultz]

Hi Idris, All,

We have here the classical database problem of finding a format that fits all.
But, as any body working with databases knows this will not work with a rigid
format.

Here we have 3 fields for the authors can can be misused.
The von is the most problematic. It seems due to its cultural diversity.

The use of the \setuppublicationlist[colsep=] helps in some ways that it gives
the writers of text the flexibility of  manually controlling the space after von field,
but as Idris has pointed out this would involve a lot of work depending on the authors
one has in ones database. This is especially, problematic for academics that reuse their
bibliographies!

Irdis second solution is a simple work around for where only a few changes are necessary.

I am not an expert with this „von“ business, but in Idris case here „al-„ a simple change in the output
of the vonsep could help globally without causing to many problems.
That is make the output of the vonsep dependent on the last character of the von-field
here „-„ 

The other possibility would be to use a discretionary switch for the output of the vonsep
one definition could be vonsep=
	yes             : output blank or global vonsep (default if vonsep field not in publication entry)
        no	           : do not output vonsep
        string         : output character sequence
        command : use command to output vonsep

Of  course we could just have a default handler for the von field and allow it to be changed
by writers! 

hope this helps the people smashing their brains on this subject/code!

regards
	Keith. 

> Am 01.02.2015 um 16:06 schrieb Idris Samawi Hamid ادريس سماوي حامد <ishamid@colostate.edu>:
> 
> Dear Syndicate,
> 
> The current bibliography handler uses the following for authors:
> 
> \type{\author[junior]{firstnames}[inits]{von}{surname}}
> 
> Now in Arabic we have something similar to the 'von' field: the definite article 'al-', 'ibn', etc. Just as with 'von' we want to ignore them in the alphabetical sorting. [On the other hand, ConTeXt cannot currently sort its own bbl files alphabetically]. See the linked picture for a real-life example (the top-right of the page contains both Dutch and Arabic examples):
> 
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/rnimlactrlqz6ak/arabic-dutch-bib.jpg?dl=0
> 
> Now the {von} field works for these Arabic prefixes, but there is an issue: There can be no space between 'al-' and what follows (e.g. 'al-Haq'). But the {von} field by default adds a space (von Corbin). So what to do? One solution is to use \setuppublicationlist[vonsep=] (see also attached):
> 
[snip, snip]
> \setuppublicationlist[vonsep=] kills the space after the prefix, but that means that for every 'von', 'van', 'abu', and the like we have to add the space manually in the {von} field (as in the above example).
> 
> If we don't want to use \setuppublicationlist[vonsep=] then we have to define a command for 'al-' that gobbles the space:
> 
> % \define \GobbleSpace{\ignorespaces}
> % \define \Al{al-\GobbleSpace}
> 
> If one is using lots of Arabic names and few, e.g., Dutch names, then using the [vonsep=] approach seems better. But in the upcoming bib module we may want a better solution so that bbl files can be more consistent and portable. Any thoughts are appreciated, and
[snip, snip]

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Re: A note on Arabic names in bibliographies and indices

[Alan BRASLAU]

The handling of the "vons" issue is cultural and language-dependent.
The problem with mucking around with vonsep and other parameters is
that one may very well have a mixture of references in a single
document (this is often the case for me). I see no solution other than
trying to identify some common use and to make the behavior depend on
the language= field (or the document language, by default).

Alan


On Sun, 1 Feb 2015 20:57:23 +0100
"Keith J. Schultz" <keithjschultz@web.de> wrote:

> Hi Idris, All,
> 
> We have here the classical database problem of finding a format that
> fits all. But, as any body working with databases knows this will not
> work with a rigid format.
> 
> Here we have 3 fields for the authors can can be misused.
> The von is the most problematic. It seems due to its cultural
> diversity.
> 
> The use of the \setuppublicationlist[colsep=] helps in some ways that
> it gives the writers of text the flexibility of  manually controlling
> the space after von field, but as Idris has pointed out this would
> involve a lot of work depending on the authors one has in ones
> database. This is especially, problematic for academics that reuse
> their bibliographies!
> 
> Irdis second solution is a simple work around for where only a few
> changes are necessary.
> 
> I am not an expert with this „von“ business, but in Idris case here
> „al-„ a simple change in the output of the vonsep could help globally
> without causing to many problems. That is make the output of the
> vonsep dependent on the last character of the von-field here „-„ 
> 
> The other possibility would be to use a discretionary switch for the
> output of the vonsep one definition could be vonsep=
> 	yes             : output blank or global vonsep (default if
> vonsep field not in publication entry) no	           : do not
> output vonsep string         : output character sequence
>         command : use command to output vonsep
> 
> Of  course we could just have a default handler for the von field and
> allow it to be changed by writers! 
> 
> hope this helps the people smashing their brains on this subject/code!
> 
> regards
> 	Keith. 
> 
> > Am 01.02.2015 um 16:06 schrieb Idris Samawi Hamid ادريس سماوي حامد
> > <ishamid@colostate.edu>:
> > 
> > Dear Syndicate,
> > 
> > The current bibliography handler uses the following for authors:
> > 
> > \type{\author[junior]{firstnames}[inits]{von}{surname}}
> > 
> > Now in Arabic we have something similar to the 'von' field: the
> > definite article 'al-', 'ibn', etc. Just as with 'von' we want to
> > ignore them in the alphabetical sorting. [On the other hand,
> > ConTeXt cannot currently sort its own bbl files alphabetically].
> > See the linked picture for a real-life example (the top-right of
> > the page contains both Dutch and Arabic examples):
> > 
> > https://www.dropbox.com/s/rnimlactrlqz6ak/arabic-dutch-bib.jpg?dl=0
> > 
> > Now the {von} field works for these Arabic prefixes, but there is
> > an issue: There can be no space between 'al-' and what follows
> > (e.g. 'al-Haq'). But the {von} field by default adds a space (von
> > Corbin). So what to do? One solution is to use
> > \setuppublicationlist[vonsep=] (see also attached):
> > 
> [snip, snip]
> > \setuppublicationlist[vonsep=] kills the space after the prefix,
> > but that means that for every 'von', 'van', 'abu', and the like we
> > have to add the space manually in the {von} field (as in the above
> > example).
> > 
> > If we don't want to use \setuppublicationlist[vonsep=] then we have
> > to define a command for 'al-' that gobbles the space:
> > 
> > % \define \GobbleSpace{\ignorespaces}
> > % \define \Al{al-\GobbleSpace}
> > 
> > If one is using lots of Arabic names and few, e.g., Dutch names,
> > then using the [vonsep=] approach seems better. But in the upcoming
> > bib module we may want a better solution so that bbl files can be
> > more consistent and portable. Any thoughts are appreciated, and
> [snip, snip]
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Re: A note on Arabic names in bibliographies and indices

[Hans Hagen]

On 2/2/2015 3:23 PM, Alan BRASLAU wrote:
> The handling of the "vons" issue is cultural and language-dependent.
> The problem with mucking around with vonsep and other parameters is
> that one may very well have a mixture of references in a single
> document (this is often the case for me). I see no solution other than
> trying to identify some common use and to make the behavior depend on
> the language= field (or the document language, by default).

what is the rules for a language changed ; the problem is that it slso 
might affect sorting

maybe some extra indicator (6th in comma separated) that specifies it

author={von, Last, Jr, First, Initials,german-a-la-french}

Hans

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                                           Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
               Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
     tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
                                              | www.pragma-pod.nl
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___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: A note on Arabic names in bibliographies and indices

[Alan BRASLAU]

Of course, language of the cited publication. Nothing else makes sense
at all. This field is also to be used for hyphenation of the title
field.

BUT, the author of the TeX document must control and decide if the
bibliography will use an eventual language= field or rather use the
language rule in vigor for the TeX document; alternately, he/she could
impose a particular language for the rendering of a particular dataset.
Thomas has argued this point.

The explicit parsing of "vons" or particles gives control for the
sorting of author names. It is not so complicated: if treated as a
particle or von, it does not enter into the sorting; if treated as
intimately part of the surname (often, but not always, the case for
post-revolution names in French, for example) then it does enter into
the sorting.

German is the only case that I know where the "von" gets placed after
the first names. Here, one must not abbreviate the von, of course, as in:
"Laue, M. V." - and I have seen this published!!
Nor do I want to see:
"von Laue, M."
However, to be correct, some publications might appear as
"Laue, M."

Now, say that I want to cite Laue's work published in English (as well
as one or more of his references published in German). Clearly this
real case will cause grief. I could set language=german for all of his
work, but then how are the titles to be hyphenated (and what about quotation
marks if the style uses them)?

This is why Hans asks if we should optionally parse 5 part author names.

Here is a real case:

@Article{Friedrich1912,
  Title                    = {Interferenzerscheinungen bei Röntgenstrahlen},
  Author                   = {Friedrich, W. and Knipping, P. and Laue, M. von},
  Journal                  = {Sitzber. Math-phys. Kl. bayer. Akad. Wiss. Manche},
  Year                     = {1912},
  Pages                    = {303},
  Volume                   = {22},

  Language                 = {german}
}

@Article{Friedrich1913,
  Title                    = {Interferenzerscheinungen bei Röntgenstrahlen},
  Author                   = {Friedrich, W. and Knipping, P. and Laue, M.},
  Journal                  = {Annalen der Physik},
  Year                     = {1913},
  Number                   = {10},
  Pages                    = {971–988},
  Volume                   = {346},

  Doi                      = {10.1002/andp.19133461004},
  ISSN                     = {1521-3889},
  Language                 = {german},
  Publisher                = {WILEY-VCH Verlag},
}

@Article{Friedrich1913a,
  Title                    = {Phénomènes d'interférence des rayons de Röntgen},
  Author                   = {Friedrich, W. and Knipping, P. and Laue, M.},
  Journal                  = {Radium (Paris)},
  Year                     = {1913},
  Number                   = {2},
  Pages                    = {47–57},
  Volume                   = {10},

  Language                 = {french}
}

@article{PhysRev.37.53,
  title = {The Diffraction of an Electron-Wave at a Single Layer of Atoms},
  author = {Laue, M. v.},
  journal = {Phys. Rev.},
  volume = {37},
  issue = {1},
  pages = {53--59},
  numpages = {0},
  year = {1931},
  month = {Jan},
  publisher = {American Physical Society},
  doi = {10.1103/PhysRev.37.53},
  url = {http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRev.37.53}
}

This last case is directly what I download from:
http://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.37.53
Yikes!

So some cleaning (and thought) IS necessary!

Alan


On Mon, 2 Feb 2015 20:40:16 +0100
"Keith J. Schultz" <keithjschultz@web.de> wrote:

> Hi Alan,
> 
> All of this is fine and good, but what is the language field suppose
> to relate to:
> 	Language of the text,
>         language of the cited publication
>         language of the citizenship of the author
>         language of the heritage of the name of the author!
> 
> Sure we can put a lot of heuristics into it, but we still should have
> a means to manually set sorting and setting of the fields of the
> authors!
> 
> As you said often one has many mixed authors names and languages of
> texts!
> 
> regards
> 	Keith.
>  
> 
> > Am 02.02.2015 um 15:23 schrieb Alan BRASLAU <alan.braslau@cea.fr>:
> > 
> > The handling of the "vons" issue is cultural and language-dependent.
> > The problem with mucking around with vonsep and other parameters is
> > that one may very well have a mixture of references in a single
> > document (this is often the case for me). I see no solution other
> > than trying to identify some common use and to make the behavior
> > depend on the language= field (or the document language, by
> > default).
> > 
> > Alan
> > 
> 



-- 
Alan Braslau
CEA DSM-IRAMIS-SPEC
CNRS URA 2464
Orme des Merisiers
91191 Gif-sur-Yvette cedex FRANCE
tel: +33 1 69 08 73 15
fax: +33 1 69 08 87 86
mailto:alan.braslau@cea.fr
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Re: A note on Arabic names in bibliographies and indices

[Hans Hagen]

On 2/1/2015 4:06 PM, Idris Samawi Hamid ادريس سماوي حامد wrote:
> Dear Syndicate,
>
> The current bibliography handler uses the following for authors:
>
> \type{\author[junior]{firstnames}[inits]{von}{surname}}

Looks mkii cq. th eold bin system ... no more time will be spent on that 
(by me).

> Now in Arabic we have something similar to the 'von' field: the definite
> article 'al-', 'ibn', etc. Just as with 'von' we want to ignore them in
> the alphabetical sorting. [On the other hand, ConTeXt cannot currently
> sort its own bbl files alphabetically]. See the linked picture for a
> real-life example (the top-right of the page contains both Dutch and
> Arabic examples):

The new mechanism uses the same sorter as registers and sorted lists. 
So, specific wishes can be addressed there.

> https://www.dropbox.com/s/rnimlactrlqz6ak/arabic-dutch-bib.jpg?dl=0
>
> Now the {von} field works for these Arabic prefixes, but there is an
> issue: There can be no space between 'al-' and what follows (e.g.
> 'al-Haq'). But the {von} field by default adds a space (von Corbin). So
> what to do? One solution is to use \setuppublicationlist[vonsep=] (see
> also attached):

I'm sure we can cook up something. Personally I'd like to get away from 
this 'von' and 'junior' thing and use better names, like

initials (by default taken from firstnames)
firstnames
prefixes (unless specificed, taken from surnames)
surnames
postfixes (unless specified, taken from surnames)

we can think of a sort keys as well, so maybe:

author = {[sortkey] firstnames, prefixes, surnames, postfixes}

or

author = {sortkey:: firstnames, prefixes, surnames, postfixes}

(we can have an exporter that exports to a regular dumb bib file for 
other usage)

> ==========
> \starttext
> \setuppublications[alternative=apa]
> \setuppublicationlist[vonsep=]
>
> \startpublication[k=corbin81,
>                    t=book,
>                    a=Corbin,
>                    y=1981,
>                    s=Corbin81]
> \author[]{Henry}[H.]{von }{Corbin}
> \title{The Concept of Comparative Philosophy}
> \pubname{Golgonooza Press}
> \city{Ipswich, United Kingdom}
> \pubyear{1981}
> \stoppublication
>
> \startpublication[k=haq,
>                    t=book,
>                    a=Haq,
>                    y=1994,
>                    s=Haq94]
> \author[]{Syed Nomanul}[S.]{al-}{Haq}
> \title{Names, Natures, and Things}
> \pubname{Kluwer}
> \city{Dordrecht}
> \pubyear{1994}
> \stoppublication
>
> \startpublication[k=ragep93,
>                    t=book,
>                    a={Ragep},
>                    y=1993,
>                    s=FJRg93]
> \author[]{F.~J.}[F.~J.]{ibn al-}{Ragep}
> \title{Memoir on Astronomy}
> \pubname{Springer Verlag}
> \city{New York}
> \pubyear{1993}
> \stoppublication
>
> \placepublications [criterium=all] % inherits from \setuppublications
> % \completepublications[criterium=cite] % only works with criterium=all
> \stoptext
> ==========
>
> \setuppublicationlist[vonsep=] kills the space after the prefix, but
> that means that for every 'von', 'van', 'abu', and the like we have to
> add the space manually in the {von} field (as in the above example).
>
> If we don't want to use \setuppublicationlist[vonsep=] then we have to
> define a command for 'al-' that gobbles the space:
>
> % \define \GobbleSpace{\ignorespaces}
> % \define \Al{al-\GobbleSpace}
>
> If one is using lots of Arabic names and few, e.g., Dutch names, then
> using the [vonsep=] approach seems better. But in the upcoming bib
> module we may want a better solution so that bbl files can be more
> consistent and portable. Any thoughts are appreciated, and
>
> Best wishes
> Idris


-- 

-----------------------------------------------------------------
                                           Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
               Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
     tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
                                              | www.pragma-pod.nl
-----------------------------------------------------------------
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maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
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___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: A note on Arabic names in bibliographies and indices

[Keith Schultz]

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Hi Hans, All,

> Am 02.02.2015 um 01:05 schrieb Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>:
> 
[snip, snip]

> I'm sure we can cook up something. Personally I'd like to get away from this 'von' and 'junior' thing and use better names, like
> 
> initials (by default taken from firstnames)
> firstnames
> prefixes (unless specificed, taken from surnames)
> surnames
> postfixes (unless specified, taken from surnames)
> 
> we can think of a sort keys as well, so maybe:
> 
> author = {[sortkey] firstnames, prefixes, surnames, postfixes}
> 
> or
> 
> author = {sortkey:: firstnames, prefixes, surnames, postfixes}
> 
> (we can have an exporter that exports to a regular dumb bib file for other usage)

I would think something more dynamic would be better!

Something like a possible filter field for parsing the author information, so that writers
can the set-up the sort field and von fields!
If it is not designated for an entry the default filter is used. 

regards
	Keith.

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