TeX question: how to switch between languages?

Question

I am using TeX, with the macro package AmS-TeX. I'd like to use it with the Italian language, so that words are hyphenated the right way (e.g. the Italian word 'distante' should be broken as di-stante; TeX instead breaks it as dis-tante, like it would break the English word 'distant').

In addition, is it possible to switch between different languages in the same document? If so, then how?

I have found solution to this problem only for LaTeX; I need, instead, a solution for TeX.

Answer 1

First part of the procedure

This procedure assumes you're running TeX Live on a Unix box.

1. Go in a working directory just to be sure you don't overwrite anything.

2. Prepare a file bplain.cnf containing the line

   bplain pdftex language.dat -translate-file=cp227.tcx *bplain.ini
   

3. Run the following command line

   fmtutil --cnffile bplain.cnf --fmtdir . --all
   

4. Do the command

   mv pdftex/bplain.fmt .
   

5. Process the test file matteo.tex shown below with

   pdftex -fmt bplain -output-format pdf matteo
   

Here is the test file

% test file matteo.tex
% activate italian
\language\csname l@italian\endcsname
\lccode`'=`'
\righthyphenmin=2
%%%

\overfullrule=0pt % just for the example

\input amstex
\documentstyle{amsppt}

\topmatter
\title A paper\endtitle
\author Matteo\endauthor
\endtopmatter

\document

\vbox{\hsize=3pt\hskip0pt % show some hyphenations
 distante
 amicizia
 dell'amicizia
 ricordo
}

\enddocument

And here is the output

Now you can move bplain.fmt in some place where TeX Live can find it; for instance

~/texmf/web2c/pdftex

(or ~/Library/texmf/web2c/pdftex on Mac OS X). The command line above will work from any directory.

If you're bold, steps 3 and 4 and the final move of bplain.fmt file can be done in one step by

fmtutil --cnffile bplain.cnf --fmtdir $(kpsewhich -var-value TEXMFHOME) --all

Second part of the procedure

Now you should have a working setup. Add the following alias to your .bashrc file:

alias bpdftex='pdftex -fmt bplain -output-format pdf'

and, when you'll open a new shell, you'll be able to run

bpdftex matteo

A more complicated example file showing how to switch languages:

\catcode`@=11
\def\italian{%
  \language\l@italian
  \lccode`'=`'
  \righthyphenmin=2
}
\def\english{%
  \language\l@english
  \lccode`'=0
  \righthyphenmin=3
}
% you can add other languages, if you want
\catcode`@=12
\english % initialization
%%%

\overfullrule=0pt % just for the example

\input amstex
\documentstyle{amsppt}

\topmatter
\title A paper\endtitle
\author Matteo\endauthor
\endtopmatter

\document

% this will use English hyphenation
\vbox{\hsize=3pt\hskip0pt % show some hyphenations
 distance
 pleasure
 confidential
 record
}

\medskip\hrule\smallskip

\italian % this will use Italian hyphenation
\vbox{\hsize=3pt\hskip0pt % show some hyphenations
 distante
 amicizia
 dell'amicizia
 ricordo 
}

\enddocument

Third part of the procedure

Switch to LaTeX

Answer 2

You may also try egreg's hyplain as a format for Plain TeX. It requires only three files to install, and the documentation is a two page leaflet.