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what is actually better to use with LuaLaTex: Babel or Polyglossia?

I read everywhere that we should prefer Polyglossia over Babel when using LuaLaTex because LuaLaTex did not completely support Babel. But these statements i read are some years old and many things have changed. So the support for Babel is maybe better?

Therefore i want to know what package i should prefer and why? thanks!

Opa114
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  • It's difficult to evaluate your claims as you haven't provided traceable references. (Where is "everywhere"?) For at least the past two years, for sure, both babel and polyglossia -- the packages -- have worked well with LuaLaTeX. While both packages' language support is pretty good (not perfect, just good...) for the "large" Western and Central European languages (English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian), I believe there are still important differences across packages in terms of quality of implementation for other European and for non-European languages. – Mico Apr 09 '16 at 17:05
  • Which language, or languages, do you need support for? – Mico Apr 09 '16 at 17:26
  • German and English, but German at most. "Everywhere" means mostly every article, blog post or forum thread on the internet when i search on google. There the most people say: Babel for PDFLatex and Polyglossia for LuaLaTex. But as i said these articles are old and there is no up 2 date statement which package is better? I know Babel has become better support for LuaLaTex. And i worked with both and can not see a great difference between them, but maybe there is one? so that's why i'm asking. – Opa114 Apr 09 '16 at 17:30
  • They said Polyglossia for LuaTex an XeTex. But what the advantages / disadvantages of Babel / Polyglossia? – Opa114 Apr 09 '16 at 18:21
  • For some languages, e.g., Sanskrit, polyglossia still doesn't play nice with LuaLaTeX. (Fortunately, it play nice with XeLaTeX.) Thus, I'd say that the value of the blanket recommendation to use "polyglossia with LuaLaTeX" remains rather suspect. For German and English, though, you won't find many meaningful differences these days between babel and polyglossia in terms of output. The input syntax differs, of course, across the two packages. – Mico Apr 11 '16 at 06:40
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    I won't say current babel is better than polyglossia (I'm biased) but certainly is better than versions of a couple of year ago. Some languages already define Unicode strings, and the core provides tools like reading on the fly of language.dat, as well as \babelpatterns to add/modify specific patterns. In a few months (before Summer, I hope), Unicode strings for all babel languages, will be provided, as well as some aditional tools. – Javier Bezos Apr 12 '16 at 09:42
  • @Mico: The document A guide to LuaLaTeX (2013/5/5) states on p. 14, in comparing polyglotssia to babel, that polyglossia "should be preferred" for use with LuaLaTeX. Then again, it was written 4 years ago, and the reason why in the author's opinion it should be preferred is not explained. – Evan Aad Jun 06 '17 at 11:35
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    @EvanAad - Thanks. If I recall correctlty, ever since TeXLive2013 -- which as released officially about a month after the document you cited was published -- both babel and polyglossia have interacted just fine with Lua(La)TeX. Actually, I seem to recall that support for all kinds of LaTeX packages improved markedly around the time TeXLive2013 was released. This improvement may have been due more to some much-appreciated updates to the LaTeX kernel than to changes in the LuaTeX engine. – Mico Jun 06 '17 at 13:32
  • A more recent comparison than the aforementioned: Decide between Polyglossia and Babel for LuaLaTeX in 2019 – schtandard Nov 26 '19 at 12:27
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    @schtandard I changed the duplicate link to the newer one (by re-opening and closing) but then added also the link to the older question. (sorry that it stayed a while in the mod queue) – Stefan Kottwitz Jan 06 '20 at 01:50

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