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Greek System

Occasionally on simplybible.com Greek words are shown, but in a simplified manner that best suits our purpose.

Greek character entities are specified by numbers in the form Α —a different number for each Greek letter. The table at right gives all the information.

An Function to Make it Easy

The task is simplified however, by a special library function GetGreek(). This will automatically transform English letters into proper Greek characters.

Most Greek characters are represented by a single letter, but seven characters need two letters. The scheme is almost the same as in Strongs, so it is familiar and easy to remember.

Here is an example of how the function is used. Where the Greek word is to appear, put... <script>new GetGreek("k,u,r,i,a,k,o,sf")</script>. In this example the word comes out as .

Function Enhancements

Breathing.
Ignore a soft breathing, but use the letter h to indicate a hard breathing at the beginning of the word. For example <script>new GetGreek("h,a,d,e,sf")</script> will yield . Note how the h in the data string has translated into an acute accent, which is the nearest thing to a hard breathing that available character entities provide.

Space.
If more than one Greek word is required, use the underline character to indicate a space, as in <script>new GetGreek("e,n,_,CH,r,i,s,t,o,sf")</script> which will produce . Note the script includes nobreak tags to stop the Greek phrase from breaking at the space.

Color and Style.
The default style is bold black. There are five other choices of styles. To get a style other than the default, include a digit 1-5 in the data string.

• 1 = Highlight
• 2 = Bold red
• 3 = Bold green
• 4 = Bold purple
• 5 = Normal type

For example <script>new GetGreek("2,e,n,_,CH,r,i,s,t,o,sf")</script> will produce .

Return Variable.
Normally the function writes directly to the document at the point where the inline script is inserted. However this document.write can be cancelled, allowing the function to be called in a script without triggering its own document.write.

This is handy if you simply want to insert the Greek word but have it take on the same style and format as the text it is inserted into. The way to do this is explained below...

If you wish the function simply to return the string and let you handle the document.write, just add another parameter "str". This allows you to treat the function as a simple variable, as in <script>document.write('just the unformatted string '+GetGreek("a,g,a,p,ee","str")+' to concatenate';)</script> which will produce: . It's the additional ,"str" that does this.

The string that is returned is unformatted and so inherits the formatting or style of whatever text it is inserted into. Thus the following was produced in a paragraph of class="giant red"

love is “” in Greek

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