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Trouble in biber with "ḥʼḤ"

TeX - LaTeX Asked on March 22, 2021

I am facing issues with special characters in biber. Specifically, this is about "ʼ", "ḥ" and "Ḥ". These are used for Arabic transcription.

I have tried rendering this with LuaLaTeX instead of PDFLaTeX, this solved the issue insofar as it renders the document, but the "ʼ" is replaced by a rectangle in the document.

I have also tried adding bibencoding = ascii and texencoding = ascii. Both resulted in the document not rendering.

documentclass[10pt,a4paper]{article}
    usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
    usepackage[american]{babel}
    usepackage{csquotes}
    usepackage[backend=biber,
                bibencoding=utf8,
                language=auto,
                style=authoryear
                sorting=nyt, 
                maxbibnames=10,
                natbib=true, 
                idembib=false]{biblatex}
    
    begin{filecontents*}{ref.bib}
    @book{suhrawardiPhilosophieErleuchtungHikmat2011a,
      title = {Philosophie der Erleuchtung =: Hikmat al-ishraq},
      shorttitle = {Philosophie der Erleuchtung},
      author = {Suhrawardī, Yaḥyá ibn Ḥabash},
      editor = {Sinai, Nicolai},
      date = {2011},
      publisher = {{Verlag der Weltreligionen}},
      location = {{Berlin}},
      isbn = {978-3-458-70032-6},
      keywords = {Early works to 1800,Sufism},
      langid = {german},
      pagetotal = {469},
      translator = {Sinai, Nicolai}
    }
    
    @book{avicennaMetaphysicsHealingParallel2004,
      title = {The metaphysics of The healing: a parallel English-Arabic text = al-Ilahīyāt min al-Shifāʼ},
      shorttitle = {The metaphysics of The healing},
        author = {Avicenna},
        editor = {Marmura, Michael E.},
        date = {2004},
        publisher = {{Brigham Young University Press}},
        location = {{Provo, UT}},
        isbn = {978-0-934893-77-0},
        keywords = {Early works to 1800,Islamic philosophy,Metaphysics},
        langid = {eng ara},
        pagetotal = {441},
        series = {Islamic translation series},
        translator = {Marmura, Michael E.}
    }
    end{filecontents*}
    
    addbibresource{ref.bib}
    
    begin{document}
        title{Some title}
        author{}
        date{}
        
        maketitle
        
    nocite{avicennaMetaphysicsHealingParallel2004}
nocite{suhrawardiPhilosophieErleuchtungHikmat2011a}
    
        printbibliography[]
    end{document}

I have also looked at this question and this question. They are related, but don’t offer a working soloution.

Furthermore, my ref.bib file is created by Zotero, so I would much prefer not having to change its contents.

One Answer

You can help LaTeX and provide the representation of the unknown characters.

begin{filecontents*}{jobname.bib}
@book{suhrawardiPhilosophieErleuchtungHikmat2011a,
  title = {Philosophie der Erleuchtung =: Hikmat al-ishraq},
  shorttitle = {Philosophie der Erleuchtung},
  author = {Suhrawardī, Yaḥyá ibn Ḥabash},
  editor = {Sinai, Nicolai},
  date = {2011},
  publisher = {{Verlag der Weltreligionen}},
  location = {{Berlin}},
  isbn = {978-3-458-70032-6},
  keywords = {Early works to 1800,Sufism},
  langid = {german},
  pagetotal = {469},
  translator = {Sinai, Nicolai}
}

@book{avicennaMetaphysicsHealingParallel2004,
  title = {The metaphysics of The healing: a parallel English-Arabic text = al-Ilahīyāt min al-Shifāʼ},
  shorttitle = {The metaphysics of The healing},
  author = {Avicenna},
  editor = {Marmura, Michael E.},
  date = {2004},
  publisher = {{Brigham Young University Press}},
  location = {{Provo, UT}},
  isbn = {978-0-934893-77-0},
  keywords = {Early works to 1800,Islamic philosophy,Metaphysics},
  langid = {eng ara},
  pagetotal = {441},
  series = {Islamic translation series},
  translator = {Marmura, Michael E.}
}
end{filecontents*}

documentclass[10pt,a4paper]{article}
usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
usepackage[american]{babel}
usepackage{csquotes}
usepackage[
  backend=biber,
  bibencoding=utf8,
  language=auto,
  style=authoryear,
  sorting=nyt, 
  maxbibnames=10,
  natbib=true, 
%  idembib=false
]{biblatex}

addbibresource{jobname.bib}

DeclareUnicodeCharacter{02BC}{'}
DeclareUnicodeCharacter{1E24}{d{H}}
DeclareUnicodeCharacter{1E25}{d{h}}

begin{document}
title{Some title}
author{}
date{}

maketitle

nocite{avicennaMetaphysicsHealingParallel2004}
nocite{suhrawardiPhilosophieErleuchtungHikmat2011a}

printbibliography[]
end{document}

enter image description here

How do you get the codes? Look in the log file when you get the error!

! Package inputenc Error: Unicode character ʼ (U+02BC)
(inputenc)                not set up for use with LaTeX.

See the inputenc package documentation for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...

l.65 printbibliography[]

?

! Package inputenc Error: Unicode character ḥ (U+1E25)
(inputenc)                not set up for use with LaTeX.

See the inputenc package documentation for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...

l.65 printbibliography[]

?

! Package inputenc Error: Unicode character Ḥ (U+1E24)
(inputenc)                not set up for use with LaTeX.

See the inputenc package documentation for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.

Alternatively, do

usepackage{newunicodechar}

newunicodechar{ʼ}{'}
newunicodechar{Ḥ}{d{H}} % d is dot under accent
newunicodechar{ḥ}{d{h}}

Correct answer by egreg on March 22, 2021

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