\documentclass[11pt]{ltxdoc} \usepackage{xltxtra} \usepackage{xspace,fancyvrb} \usepackage[neverdecrease]{paralist} \usepackage[dvipdfm]{color} \definecolor{myblue}{rgb}{0.02,0.04,0.48} \definecolor{lightblue}{rgb}{0.61,.8,.8} \definecolor{myred}{rgb}{0.65,0.04,0.07} \definecolor{darkgray}{gray}{0.3} \definecolor{lightgray}{gray}{0.6} \definecolor{mygreen}{rgb}{0,.43,0} \usepackage[dvipdfm, bookmarks=true, colorlinks=true, linkcolor=myblue, urlcolor=myblue, citecolor=myblue, hyperindex=false, hyperfootnotes=false, pdftitle={Polyglossia: A Babel replacement for XeLaTeX}, pdfauthor={F Charette }, pdfkeywords={xetex, xelatex, multilingual, babel, hyphenation} ]{hyperref} \usepackage{polyglossia,farsical} \setmainlanguage[variant=uk]{english} \setotherlanguages{arabic,hebrew,syriac,greek,russian} \newcommand*\Cmd[1]{\cmd{#1}\DescribeMacro{#1}\xspace} \newcommand*\pkg[1]{\textsf{\color{myblue}#1}} \newcommand*\file[1]{\texttt{\color{myblue}#1}} \newcommand*\TR[1]{\textcolor{myred}{#1}} \newcommand*\TB[1]{\textcolor{myblue}{\bf #1}} \def\eg{\textit{e.g.,}\xspace} \def\ie{\textit{i.e.,}\xspace} \def\ca{\textit{ca.}\@\xspace} \def\Eg{\textit{E.g.,}\xspace} \def\Ie{\textit{I.e.,}\xspace} \def\etc{\@ifnextchar.{\textit{etc}}{\textit{etc.}\@\xspace}} \newlength{\oldparindent} \newcommand{\parindentoff}{\setlength{\oldparindent}{\parindent} \setlength{\parindent}{0pt}} \newcommand{\parindenton}{\setlength{\parindent}{\oldparindent}} %% Sidenotes << copied from fontspec.dtx \newcommand\warn[2]{% \edef\thisversion{#1}% \ifhmode\unskip~\fi{\ifx\thisversion\fileversion\color{red}\fi $\leftarrow$}% \marginpar{\raggedleft \small% {\ifx\thisversion\fileversion\color{red}\fi$\rightarrow$}% \,{\notefont #1:~#2}}} \newcommand\new[1]{% \edef\thisversion{#1}% \ifhmode\unskip~\fi{\ifx\thisversion\fileversion\color{blue}\else\color[gray]{0.5}\fi $\leftarrow$}% \marginpar{\raggedleft \small\ifx\thisversion\fileversion\color{blue}\else\color[gray]{0.5}\fi $\rightarrow$\,{\notefont #1:~New!}}} \newcommand\displaycmd[2]{% \\\DescribeMacro{#2}\centerline{\cmd{#1}}} \renewenvironment{itemize}{\begin{compactitem}[\char"2023]}%[{\fontspec{DejaVu Sans}\char"25BB}]}% {\end{compactitem}} \renewenvironment{enumerate}{\begin{compactenum}}{\end{compactenum}} %% Sidenote font \newfontfamily\notefont[Scale=MatchLowercase]{Lucida Sans Unicode} %%% %% fontspec declarations: \setromanfont[Mapping=tex-text]{Linux Libertine} \defaultfontfeatures{Scale=MatchLowercase} \setmonofont{DejaVu Sans Mono}%{Consolas} \setsansfont{Lucida Sans Unicode} \newfontfamily\arabicfont[Script=Arabic]{Scheherazade} \newfontfamily\farsifont[Script=Arabic]{Farsi Simple Bold} \newfontfamily\syriacfont[Script=Syriac]{Serto Jerusalem} \newfontfamily\hebrewfont[Script=Hebrew]{SBL Hebrew} \newcommand\Babel{\pkg{babel}\xspace} \linespread{1.05} \frenchspacing \EnableCrossrefs \CodelineIndex \RecordChanges % COMMENT THE NEXT LINE TO INCLUDE THE CODE \AtBeginDocument{\OnlyDescription} \begin{document} \GetFileInfo{polyglossia.sty} \title{\textcolor{lightblue}{\huge \fontspec{GFS Ambrosia} Π$\;\,$ο$\;\,$λ$\;\,$υ$\;\,$γ$\;\,$λ$\;\,$ω$\;\,$σ$\;\,$σ$\;\,$ι$\;\,$α}\\[16pt] \color{myblue}Polyglossia: A Babel Replacement for \XeLaTeX} \author{\scshape\color{myblue}François Charette} \date{\filedate \qquad \fileversion\\ \footnotesize (\textsc{pdf} file generated on \today)} \maketitle \tableofcontents \DeleteShortVerb{\|} \MakeShortVerb{\¦} %\begin{abstract} %Blablabla %\end{abstract} \section{Introduction} Polyglossia is a package for facilitating multilingual typesetting with \XeLaTeX. Basically, it can be used as a replacement of \Babel{} for performing the following tasks automatically: \begin{enumerate} \item Loading the appropriate hyphenation patterns. \item Setting the script and language tags of the current font (if possible and available), via the package \pkg{fontspec}. \item Switching to a font assigned by the user to a particular script or language. \item Adjusting some typographical conventions in function of the current language (such as afterindent, frenchindent, spaces before or after punctuation marks, etc.). \item Redefining all document strings (like “chapter”, “figure”, “bibliography”). \item Adapting the formatting of dates (for non-gregorian calendars via external packages bundled with polyglossia: currently the hebrew, islamic and farsi calendars are supported). \item For languages that have their own numeration system, modifying the formatting of numbers appropriately (this also includes redefining the alphabetic sequence for non-Latin alphabets). \item Ensuring the proper directionality if the document contains languages that are written from right to left (via the package \pkg{bidi}, available separately). \end{enumerate} Several features of \Babel{} that do not make sense in the \XeTeX\ world (like font encodings, shorthands, etc.) are (obviously) not supported. Generally speaking, \pkg{polyglossia} aims to remain as compatible as possible with the fundamental features of \Babel{} while being cleaner, light-weight, and modern. The package \pkg{antomega} has been much beneficial in our attempt to reach this objective. \paragraph{Requirements:} The current version of \pkg{polyglossia} makes use of some convenient macros defined in the \pkg{etoolbox} package by Philipp Lehmann. Being designed specifically for \XeLaTeX, it obviously also relies on \pkg{fontspec} by Will Robertson. For languages written from right to left, it needs the package \pkg{bidi} (by the present author). Polyglossia also bundles three packages for calendaric computations (\pkg{hebrewcal}, \pkg{hijrical}, and \pkg{farsical}). \section{Loading language definition files} \subsection{The recommended way} You can determine the default language by means of the command: \displaycmd{\setdefaultlanguage[⟨options⟩]\{lang\}}{\setdefaultlanguage} (or equivalently \Cmd\setmainlanguage). Secondary languages can be loaded with \displaycmd{\setotherlanguage[⟨options⟩]\{lang\}}{\setotherlanguage}. These commands have the advantage of being explicit and of allowing to set language-specific options.\footnote{ % More on language-specific options below.} It is also possible to load a series of secondary languages at once using \displaycmd{\setotherlanguages\{lang1,lang2,lang3,…\}}{\setotherlanguages}. Language-specific options can be set or changed at any time by means of \displaycmd{\setkeys\{⟨lang⟩\}\{opt1=value1,opt2=value2,…\}}{\setkeys}. \subsection{The “Babel way”} As with \Babel{}, \pkg{polyglossia} also allows to load language definition files as package options. In most cases, option \texttt{⟨lang⟩} will load the file \file{gloss-⟨lang⟩.ldf}. Note however that the \textit{first} language listed in \\ \centerline{\cmd{\usepackage[lang1,lang2,…]{polyglossia}}} will be the default language for the document, which is the opposite convention of \Babel. Note also that this method may not work in some cases, and should be considered deprecated. \subsection{Supported languages} Table~\ref{tab:lang} lists all languages currently supported. Those in red have specific options and/or command that are explained in section \ref{specific} below. \begin{table}[h]\centering \label{tab:lang} \begin{tabular}{lllll}\hline albanian & croatian & galician & \TR{lsorbian} &\TR{serbian} \\ amharic\footnotemark & czech & \TR{german} & \TR{magyar}& slovak \\ \TR{arabic}& danish & \TR{greek} & norsk & slovenian\\ bahasai & divehi & \TR{hebrew} & nynorsk & spanish \\ bahasam & dutch & hindi & polish & swedish \\ basque &\TR{english}& icelandic & portuges & \TR{syriac} \\ brazil &\TR{esperanto}& interlingua & romanian & \TR{thai} \\ breton & estonian & irish &\TR{russian}& turkish \\ bulgarian&\TR{farsi} & italian & samin & ukrainian \\ catalan & finnish & latin & sanskrit &\TR{usorbian} \\ coptic & french & latvian & scottish & welsh \\ \hline \end{tabular} \caption{Languages currently supported in \pkg{polyglossia}} \end{table} \footnotetext{ New in version 1.0.1. This should be considered an experimental attempt to port the package \pkg{ethiop}. Feedbacks are welcome.} Some options are convenient shortcuts for loading languages with specific options: \begin{itemize} \item american = english with option ‘variant=american’ \item USenglish = english with option ‘variant=american’ \item UKenglish = english with option ‘variant=british’ \item british = english with option ‘variant=british’ \item australian = english with option ‘variant=australian’ \item newzealand = english with option ‘variant=newzealand’ \item ogerman = german with option ‘spelling=old’ \item monogreek = greek with option ‘variant=monotonic’ (or ‘mono’) \item polygreek = greek with option ‘variant=polytonic’ (or ‘poly’) \item ancientgreek = greek with option ‘variant=ancient’ \end{itemize} Another option (turned off by default) is ‘nolocalmarks’, which prevents the redefinition of the internal \LaTeX\ macros \cmd\markboth\ and \cmd\markright. There is also the option ‘quiet’ which turns off most info messages and some of the warnings issued by \LaTeX, \pkg{fontspec} and \pkg{polyglossia}. \section{Language-switching commands} Whenever a language definition file \file{gloss-⟨lang⟩.ldf} is loaded, the command \cmd{\text⟨lang⟩[⟨options⟩]\{…\}} \DescribeMacro{\text⟨lang⟩} becomes available for short insertions of text in that language. For example ¦\textrussian{\today}¦ yields \textrussian{\today} Longer passages are better put between the environment ¦⟨lang⟩¦ (again with the possibility of setting language options locally. \DescribeEnv{⟨lang⟩} For instance the following allows us to quote the beginning of Homer’s \textit{Iliad}: \begin{Verbatim}[formatcom=\color{myblue}] \begin{greek}[variant=ancient] μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προί̈αψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή, ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεί̈δης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. \end{greek} \end{Verbatim} \begin{greek}[variant=ancient] μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προί̈αψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή, ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεί̈δης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. \end{greek} \bigskip Note that for Arabic one cannot use the environment ¦arabic¦, as \cmd\arabic\ is defined internally by \LaTeX. In this case we need to use the environment ¦Arabic¦ instead\DescribeEnv{Arabic}. This is the beginning of Ibn Khaldūn’s \textit{Muqaddima}: \begin{Verbatim}[formatcom={\color{myblue}\addfontfeature{Script=Arabic}}] \begin{Arabic} اعلم أنّ فنّ التاريخ فنّ عزيز المذهب، جمّ الفوائد، شريف الغاية؛ إذ هو يوقفنا على أحوال الماضين من الأمم في أخلاقهم، والأنبياء في سيرهم، والملوك في دولهم وسياستهم؛ حتّى تتمّ فائدة الإقتداء في ذلك لمن يرومه في أحوال الدين والدنيا. \end{Arabic} \end{Verbatim} \begin{Arabic} اعلم أنّ فنّ التاريخ فنّ عزيز المذهب، جمّ الفوائد، شريف الغاية؛ إذ هو يوقفنا على أحوال الماضين من الأمم في أخلاقهم، والأنبياء في سيرهم، والملوك في دولهم وسياستهم؛ حتّى تتمّ فائدة الإقتداء في ذلك لمن يرومه في أحوال الدين والدنيا. \end{Arabic} \subsection{Other commands} The following commands are probably of lesser interest to the end user, but ought to be mentioned here. \begin{itemize} \item \Cmd\selectbackgroundlanguage: this selects the global font setup and the numeration definitions for the default language. \item \Cmd\resetdefaultlanguage\ (experimental): completely switches the default language to another one in the middle of a document: \textit{this may have adverse effects}! \item \Cmd\normalfontlatin: in an environment where \cmd\normalfont\ has been redefined to a non-latin script, this will call the font defined with \cmd\setromanfont\ etc. Likewise it is possible to use \Cmd\rmfamilylatin, \Cmd\sffamilylatin, and \Cmd\ttfamilylatin. \item Some macros defined in \Babel’s \file{hyphen.cfg} (and thus usually compiled into the xelatex format) are redefined, but keep a similar behaviour, namely \Cmd\selectlanguage, \Cmd\foreignlanguage, and the environment ¦otherlanguage¦\DescribeEnv{otherlanguage}. \end{itemize} % Since the \XeLaTeX\ format incorporates \Babel{}'s \file{hyphen.cfg}, the low-level commands for hyphenation and language switching defined there are also accessible.\footnote{ % The file \file{hyphen\_cfg} (available on the \href{http://scripts.sil.org/svn-view/xetex/TRUNK/texmf/tex/xelatex/polyglossia/hyphen\_cfg}{\XeTeX\ subversion repository}) is meant to eventually replace \Babel’s \file{hyphen.cfg}. If you want to experiment with it, rename it into \file{hyphen.cfg}, copy it to \texttt{…/tex/xelatex/polyglossia/} and rebuild the xelatex format.} \section{Font setup} With polyglossia it is possible to associate a specific font with any script or language that occurs in the document. That font should always be defined as ¦\⟨script⟩font¦\ or ¦\⟨language⟩font¦. For instance, if the default roman font defined by \cmd\setromanfont\ does not support Greek, then one can define the font used to display Greek with:\\ \centerline{ \cmd\newfontfamily\cmd{\greekfont[⟨options⟩]\{⟨font⟩\}}. } See the \pkg{fontspec} documentation for more information. Whenever a new language is activated, \pkg{polyglossia} will first check whether a font has been defined for that language or – for languages in non-Latin scripts – for the script it uses. If it is not defined, it will use the currently active font and will attempt to turn on the appropriate OpenType tags for the script and language used, in case these are available in the font, by means of \pkg{fontspec}’s \cmd\addfontfeature. If the current font does not appear to support the script of that language, an error message is displayed. \section{Language-specific options and commands}\label{specific} This section gives a list of all languages for which options and end-user commands are defined. The default value of each option is given in italic. %\subsection{amharic} \subsection{arabic} \textbf{Options}: \begin{itemize} \item \TB{calendar} = \textit{gregorian} or islamic (= hijri) \item \TB{locale} = \textit{default},\footnote{ % For Egypt, Sudan, Yemen and the Golf states.} mashriq,\footnote{ % For Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine.} libya, algeria, tunisia, morocco, or mauritania. This setting influences the spelling of the month names for the Gregorian calendar, as well as the form of the numerals (unless overriden by the following option). \item \TB{numerals} = \textit{mashriq} or maghrib (the latter is the default when locale = algeria, tunisia or morocco) \item \TB{abjadjimnotail} = \textit{false} or true.\new{1.0.3} Set this to true if you want the \textit{abjad} form of the number three to be \textarabic{ج‍}\ – as in the manuscript tradition – instead of the modern usage \textarabic{ج}. \end{itemize} \textbf{Commands}: \begin{itemize} \item \Cmd\abjad and \Cmd\abjadmaghribi (see section \ref{abjad}) \end{itemize} \subsection{english} \textbf{Options}: \begin{itemize} \item \TB{variant} = \textit{american} (= us), usmax (same as ‘american’ but with additional hyphenation patterns), british (= uk), australian or newzealand \item \TB{ordinalmonthday} = true/\textit{false} (true by default only when variant = british) \end{itemize} \subsection{esperanto} \textbf{Commands}: \begin{itemize} \item \Cmd\hodiau\ and \Cmd\hodiaun are special forms of \cmd\today\ (see the \Babel\ documentation) \end{itemize} \subsection{farsi} \textbf{Options}: \begin{itemize} \item \TB{numerals} = western or \textit{eastern} \item \TB{locale} (not yet implemented) \item \TB{calendar} (not yet implemented) \end{itemize} \textbf{Commands}: \begin{itemize} \item \Cmd\abjad (see section \ref{abjad}) \end{itemize} \subsection{german} \textbf{Options}: \begin{itemize} \item \TB{spelling} = \textit{new} (= 1996) or old (= 1901): indicates whether hyphenation patterns for traditional (1901) or reformed (1996) orthography should be used. The latter is the default. \item \TB{latesthyphen} = \textit{false} or true: if this option is set to true, the latest (experimental) hyphenation patterns ‘(n)german-x-latest’ will be loaded instead of ‘german’ or ‘ngerman’. NB: This is based on the file \texttt{language.dat} that comes with \TeX Live 2008. \item\TB{babelshorthands} = \textit{false} or true: \new{1.0.3} if this is turned on, all shorthands defined in the Babel language for fine-tuning the hyphenation of German words are activated. (NB: This feature was broken in the previous version.) \begin{itemize} \item ¦"ck¦ for ¦ck¦ to be hyphenated as ¦k-k¦ \item ¦"ff¦ for ¦ff¦ to be hyphenated as ¦ff-f¦; this is also available for the letters l, m, n, p, r and t \item ¦"|¦ disables the ligature at this position \item ¦"-¦ for an explicit hyphen sign, allowing hyphenation in the rest of the word \item ¦""¦ is like ¦"-¦, but produces no hyphen sign (for compound words with an hyphen, e.g., ¦foo-""bar¦) \item ¦"~¦ for a compound word mark without a breakpoint \item ¦"=¦ for a compound word mark with a breakpoint, allowing hyphenation in the composing words. \end{itemize} There are also four shorthands for quotation signs: \begin{itemize} \item ¦"`¦ for German left double quotes („) \item ¦"'¦ for German right double quotes (“) \item ¦"<¦ for French left double quotes («) \item ¦">¦ for French right double quotes (»). \end{itemize} \end{itemize} \subsection{greek} \textbf{Options}: \begin{itemize} \item \TB{variant} = \textit{monotonic} (= mono), polytonic (= poly), or ancient \item \TB{numerals} = \textit{greek} or arabic \item \TB{attic} = \textit{false}/true \end{itemize} \textbf{Commands}: \begin{itemize} \item \Cmd\Greeknumber and \Cmd\greeknumber \ (see section \ref{abjad}). \item The command \Cmd\atticnumeral (= \Cmd\atticnum) (activated with the option ¦attic=true¦), displays numbers using the acrophonic numbering system (defined in the Unicode range \textsf{U+10140–U+10174}).\footnote{ % See the documentation of the \pkg{xgreek} package for more details.} \end{itemize} \subsection{hebrew} \textbf{Options}: \begin{itemize} \item \TB{numerals} = hebrew or \textit{arabic} \item \TB{calendar} = hebrew or \textit{gregorian} \end{itemize} \textbf{Commands}: \begin{itemize} \item \Cmd\hebrewnumeral\ (= \Cmd\hebrewalph) (see section \ref{abjad}). \end{itemize} \subsection{lsorbian and usorbian} \textbf{Commands}: \begin{itemize} \item \Cmd\oldtoday : see the \Babel documentation. \end{itemize} \subsection{magyar} \textbf{Commands}: \begin{itemize} \item \Cmd\ontoday\ (= \Cmd\ondatemagyar): special forms of \cmd\today\ (see the \Babel\ documentation). \end{itemize} \subsection{russian} \textbf{Options}: \begin{itemize} \item \TB{spelling} = \textit{modern} or old (for captions and date only, not for hyphenation) \end{itemize} \subsection{sanskrit} \textbf{Options}: \begin{itemize} \item \TB{Script} (default = Devanagari). \new{1.0.2} The value is passed to \pkg{fontspec} in cases where ¦\sanskritfont¦ or ¦\devanagarifont¦ are not defined. This can be useful if you typeset Sanskrit texts in scripts other than Devanagari. \end{itemize} \subsection{serbian} \textbf{Options}: \begin{itemize} \item \TB{script} = \textit{cyrillic} or latin \end{itemize} \subsection{syriac} \textbf{Options}: \begin{itemize} \item \TB{numerals} = \textit{western} (i.e., 1234567890), eastern (for which the Oriental Arabic numerals are used: \textarabic{١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩٠}), or abjad\new{1.0.1}. \end{itemize} \textbf{Commands}: \begin{itemize} \item \Cmd\abjadsyriac (see section \ref{abjad}) \end{itemize} \subsection{thai} \textbf{Options}: \begin{itemize} \item \TB{numerals} = thai or \textit{arabic} \end{itemize} To insert the word breaks, you need to use an external processor. See the documentation to \pkg{thai-latex} and the file \file{testthai.tex} that comes with this package. \section{Modifying or extending captions and date formats} To redefine internal macros, you can use the command ¦\gappto¦ from the package \pkg{etoolbox}. For compatibility with Babel the command ¦\addto¦ is also available with the same effect. For instance, to change the ¦\chaptername¦ for language ¦lingua¦, you can do this: \begin{verbatim} \gappto\linguacaptions{\renewcommand{\chaptername}{Caput}} \end{verbatim} \section{Alphabetic numeration in Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac and Farsi}\label{abjad} In certain languages, numbers can be represented by a special alphanumerical notation.\footnote{ % See, e.g., \url{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_numerals}, \url{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abjad_numerals}, and \url{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_numerals}.} %% \url{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syriac_alphabet} Note that the Hebrew implementation in \pkg{polyglossia} is currently less sophisticated than the one in \Babel, where various special cases are taken into account. The Greek numerals are obtained with \Cmd\greeknumeral (or \Cmd\Greeknumeral\ in uppercase). Example: ¦\greeknumeral{1863}¦ yields \textgreek{\greeknumeral{1863}}. The Arabic \textit{abjad} numbers can be generated with the command \Cmd\abjad. Example: ¦\abjad{1863}¦ yields {\arabicfont\abjad{1863}}. In the Maghrib the conventions are somewhat different, and the maghribi forms of the \textit{abjad} numerals are obtained with the \Cmd\abjadmaghribi\ command. Example: ¦\abjadmaghribi{1863}¦ yields {\arabicfont\abjadmaghribi{1863}}. Hebrew numerals are generated with the command \Cmd\hebrewnumeral. Example: ¦\hebrewnumeral{1863}¦ yields {\hebrewfont\hebrewnumeral{1863}}. Support is also provided for Syriac abjad numerals, which can be generated with \Cmd\abjadsyriac. Example: ¦\abjadsyriac{463}¦ yields {\syriacfont\abjadsyriac{463}}. \section{Mappings for Arabic, Farsi and Thai numerals} Three fontmappings are provided with polyglossia to allow the automatic conversion of the standard Western numerals (0123456789) in their Arabic, Farsi, or Thai forms. To activate them, one should use the fontspec option Mapping=arabicdigits (or farsidigits or thaidigits). For instance if \cmd\syriacfont\ is defined with the option ¦Mapping=arabicdigits¦, then by typing ¦\textsyriac{2008}¦ one obtains \textsyriac{٢٠٠٨}. \section{Calendars} \subsection{Hebrew calendar (hebrewcal.sty)} The package \file{hebrewcal.sty} is almost a verbatim copy of \file{hebcal.sty} that comes with \Babel. The command \Cmd\Hebrewtoday\\ formats the current date in the Hebrew calendar (depending of the current writing direction this will automatically set either in Hebrew script or in roman transliteration). \subsection{Islamic calendar (hijrical.sty)} This new package computes dates in the Islamic (Hijra) calendar, which is lunar.\footnote{ % It makes use of the arithmetical algorithm in chapter 6 of Reingold \& Gershowitz, \textit{Calendrical calculation: the Millenium edition} (Cambridge University Press, 2001).\label{reingold}} It provides two macros for the end-user. The command \displaycmd{\HijriFromGregorian\{⟨year⟩\}\{⟨month⟩\}\{⟨day⟩\}}{\HijriFromGregorian} sets the counters ¦Hijriday¦, ¦Hijrimonth¦ and ¦Hijriyear¦. \Cmd\Hijritoday\ formats the Hijri date for the current day (depending of the current writing direction this is set either in Arabic or in roman transliteration). It also accepts an optional argument to add or subtract a correction (in days) to the date computed by the arithmetical algorithm.\footnote{ % The Islamic calendar is indeed a purely lunar calendar based on the observation of the first visibility of the lunar crescent at the beginning of the lunar month, so there can be differences between different localities, as well as between civil and religious authorities.} For instance if ¦\Hijritoday¦ yields the date “7 Rajab 1429” (which is the date that was displayed on the front page of \href{http://www.aljazeera.net}{aljazeera.net} on 11th July 2008), ¦\Hijritoday[1]¦ would rather print “8 Rajab 1429” (the date indicated the same day on the site \href{http://www.gulfnews.com}{gulfnews.com}). \subsection{Farsi (jalālī) calendar (farsical.sty)} Again this is taken almost verbatim from ¦Arabiftoday.sty¦ (in the \pkg{Arabi} package), itself a slight modification of the file ¦ftoday.sty¦ in Farsi\TeX.\footnote{ % I intend to rewrite \pkg{farsical} from scratch using the algorithm in Reingold \& Gershowitz (ref.~n.~\ref{reingold}).} Here we have renamed the command \cmd\ftoday\ to \Cmd\Jalalitoday. Example: today is \Jalalitoday. %\section{Varia} \section{Acknowledgements} \pkg{Polyglossia} is notable for being a recycle box of previous contributions by other people. I take this opportunity to thank the following individuals, whose splendid work has made my task almost trivial in comparision: Johannes Braams and the numerous contributors to the \Babel{} package (in particular Boris Lavva and others for its Hebrew support), Alexej Kryukov (\pkg{antomega}), Will Robertson (\pkg{fontspec}), Apostolos Syropoulos (\pkg{xgreek}), Youssef Jabri (\pkg{arabi}), and Vafa Khalighi (\pkg{xepersian}). I should also thank other individuals for their assistance in supporting specific languages: Yves Codet (Sanskrit), Zdenek Wagner (Hindi), Mikhal Oren (Hebrew), Sergey Astanin (Russian), Khaled Hosny (Arabic), Sertaç Ö. Yıldız (Turkish), and several other members of the \XeTeX\ user community, notably Enrico Gregorio, who has sent me many useful suggestions and corrections and contributed the ¦\newXeTeXintercharclass¦ mechanism in xelatex.ini which is now used by polyglossia. And of course my gratitude also goes to Jonathan Kew, the formidable author of \XeTeX! \end{document}