[sword-devel] Non-Anglophone Bible references

[David Instone-Brewer]

Tim has over-simplified the situation.
Other systems include different ways of abbreviating the books.
In the following, "Am" is an abbreviation which does not include the 
end of the word,
while Jas (ie James) does include the end of the word, so it 
shouldn't have a dot after it,
which results in different systems:

Am.7   and Jas 1
Am.7   and Jas.1
Am. 7   and Jas 1
Am. 7   and Jas. 1

Also, in numbering, the Dead Sea Scrolls have re-popularised the use 
of dots instead of colons, ie

Am 7.1-3, 4-5

And we haven't dealt with variations in listing other chapters

Am 7.1-3; 8.1-2
Am 7:1-3. 8:1-2
etc

And then we have the problem of references which span a chapter:

Am 7.1--8.2   [or use an 'en' dash]
Am 7.1-8.2
Am 7.1 - 8.2
etc

There are so many 'standards' that it is best simply to pick the one 
which works best for you and stick to it.

I'd suggest the following is the best compromise between humans and people.

Amo 7.1-2; 8.1-2--9.2: Thus says the Lord....
Jos Ant 1.2.15: On this day...
1QS 3.1
4Q496 2.6.1
4Qp.Is.a 1.1
b.San 15.a-b  [this means folio 15, sides a and b]

This uses:
- no dots but a space after the abbreviation of the title of the work
- preceding dot instead of superscript (the "a" at the end of 
"4Qp.Is" is normally superscript)
- normal numbers where possible (ie no Roman numerals but 
occasionally you need lower case letters)
- no italics ("Ant" is normally in italic, as a non-Biblical book title)
- 3-letter Bible book abbreviation (preferably the same as that used 
by BibleWorks and others)
- dots dividing between verses, chapters, books and any other levels 
of division.
- single hyphen for spans of verses
- double hyphen for spans of chapters
- semi-colon for separate references
- colon used to separate a reference from the content


David IB

At 21:58 17/06/2010, David Haslam wrote:

>Tim Bulkeley has written a short item on this topic here.
>
>http://bigbible.org/sansblogue/bible/non-anglophone-bible-references/
>Non-Anglophone Bible references
>
>The topic arises out of his frustration at having to perform a massive
>search and replace task to submit an article to a certain European
>theological journal.
>
>As many CrossWire developers are Anglophone, this may prompt some further
>thoughts that could benefit all our projects.
>
>David
>
>
>--
>View this message in context: 
>http://sword-dev.350566.n4.nabble.com/Non-Anglophone-Bible-references-tp2259480p2259480.html
>Sent from the SWORD Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
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