Directory macros/latex/required/babel/base

Babel 3.36

This package manages culturally-determined typographical (and other) rules, and hyphenation patterns for a wide range of languages. Many language styles work with pdflatex, as well as with xelatex and lualatex out of the box. A few even work with plain formats.

The latest stable version is available on https://ctan.org/pkg/babel.

Languages are not part of the Babel core any more; in particular, it shall be no longer necessary to synchronize Babel core releases with releases of Babel language files. See CONTRIB for further details about contributing a language. You may also create an ini file or improve the existing ones – it's a trivial task (no programming skills required at all), but don't hesitate to ask for help.

Included is a set of ini files for about 200 languages.

The best way to install and/or update it is with the help of package managers.

Changes are described in babel.pdf with the label "New <version>". The manual has been expanded to include some tips and tricks, but it will be improved in next releases.

Reporting Bugs

If you wish to report a problem or bug in any of these packages please use the Issue Tracker for LaTeX2ε on GitHub and follow the guidelines that pop up if you press the New issue button.

In particular, to check that you are really seeing a bug, please write a short, self-contained document that shows the problem. This should include the latexbug package, which will warn if your test file is not suitable for one or the other reason. See the CONTRIBUTING guide for further details, or if you need to obtain the latexbug package.

If the bug turns out to be with third-party software then please contact the developer, and not us!

You may also report them to the current maintainer more informally on:

http://www.texnia.com/contact.html

Bugs related to specific languages are best reported to their respective authors.

Latest changes

3.36   2019-11-14
       - New - \babeladjust, with options: bidi.text, bidi.mirroring,
         bidi.mapdigits, layout.tabular, layout.lists, linebreak.sea,
         linebreak.cjk. There are still some limitations.
       - New - ini for Polytonic Greek, thanks to Claudio Beccari.
       - Fix - Language and script set for Chinese Tradicional and
         Chinese Simplified.
       
3.35   2019-10-15
       - \markboth and \markright made robust with a recent LaTeX.
       - Shorthands work in bibs and refs even with safe=none.
       - Fix - Another issue related to \ensureascii and LGR (#30)
       - A temporary hack for issue #25.

3.34   2019-09-27
       - Improved compatibility for \babelfont vs \setmainfont.
       - Fix - active ' entered in an infinite loop with lua (#27).
       - Fix - main in \babelprovide was not set until begin document.

3.33   2019-07-19
       - \prehyphenchar set to 0 in languages requiring it: kannada,
         marathi, tamil, etc. (lua).
       - \AddBabelHook can be set for specific languages.
       - Fix - !\grq in T1 behaved like the ligature !` (#19).
       - Minimal preliminary support for the experimental harftex.

3.32   2019-06-03
       - CJK line breaking is now disabled in verbatim (lua).
       - New - \babelcharproperty, to change the direction, mirroring
         glyph and line break properties (lua).
       - Basic support for the picture environment (with pict2e) and pgf
         (lua, somewhat experimental).
       - Start support for harftex (just try - it may work).

3.31   2019-05-04
       - Basic support for line breaking with CJK scripts (lua)
       - layout=tabular now works with the 'array' package (and some
         others; lua).

3.30   2019-04-22
       - Fix - dir in boxes inside math (hopefully now it works; lua).
       - Option mapdigits for \babelprovide, which converts European
         digits to local ones (lua).

3.29    2019-04-03
       - The fix for boxes inside math is incompatible with ams.
         Removed (a better fix is under study).
       - Options bidi-l and bidi-r (for the bidi package; xe).

3.28    2019-04-01
       - Fixes - wrong dir after math, in math inside tabular, in weak L
         inside R inside L, and in boxes inside math.
       - \babelfont now takes into account \defaultfontfeatures. This
         is a potential source of backwards incompatibilities, but
         very likely the risks are very low, and it is, I think, the
         expected behavior.

3.27   2018-11-13
       - Preliminary support for bidi (by Vafa Khalighi) with xetex.
       - Fix for 3.23 - \ensureascii was redefined even when not 
         necessary.
       - Minor improvements in babel-vi.ini.

3.26   2018-10-16
       - Fix for 3.25 - \babelprovide raised an error with xetex. 

3.25   2018-10-03
       - Fixes for 3.23 - mapfont=direction could raise an error.
       - Language and Script were not always defined correctly.
       - Improved tentative support for Thai, Lao and Khmer in both 
         luatex and xetex.

3.24   2018-09-26
       - Prelimimary support for Thai interword spacing with luatex.

3.23   2018-09-02
       - After extensive tests and fixing some issues, bidi=basic is 
         not experimental any longer.
       - import in \babelprovide does not require a language code if
         the language name is a recognized one.
       - New macro: \ifbabelshorthand.
       - TS1, T3 and TS3 have been added to the non-ascii list, to 
         avoid problems in case no ASCII-savvy encoding is requested.
       - Define Language and Script if fontspec does not known them (eg, 
         the Japanese script).
       - Set the \thepage bidi bahavior in foots/heads.
       - Fix - Undefined \bbl@stripslash in Plain.

Javier Bezos