[comp.text.tex] \language

myers@ut-emx.uucp (Eric Myers) (10/15/90)

In article <1990Oct14.024309.8657@maths.tcd.ie> tim@maths.tcd.ie
(Timothy Murphy) writes: 
>The new primitive \language is dealt with
>in a single paragraph (with double danger sign)
>at the end of Appendix H.

Could you (or someone) summarize what this does?  

-- 
Eric Myers	"If God had intended for man to fly 
			He would have given us the brains to build airplanes."
Center for Relativity, Department of Physics, University of Texas at Austin
myers@emx.utexas.edu  |   myers@utaphy.bitnet   |   myers@ut-emx.UUCP

eijkhout@s41.csrd.uiuc.edu (Victor Eijkhout) (10/19/90)

myers@ut-emx.uucp (Eric Myers) writes:

>In article <1990Oct14.024309.8657@maths.tcd.ie> tim@maths.tcd.ie
>(Timothy Murphy) writes: 
>>The new primitive \language is dealt with

>Could you (or someone) summarize what this does?  

There is a 'current language' and there is the parameter \language.
The cl determines what hyphenation table is used. Whenever a
character is added to a horizontal list TeX compares the cl
to \language, and if they differ a whatsit node is inserted
switching the cl.

Changing \language in IniTeX is used to add \pattern or
\hyphenation (also outside IniTeX) for several languages.

Victor.