To Belabour The Points: Encoding Vowel Phonology in Syriac and Hebrew Vocalization

Nick Posegay

doi:10.1093/jss/fgaa045

Abstract

Abstract Medieval Hebrew and Syriac scribes both indicated vowels by placing dots above or below their consonantal writing. These vowel points were created in the Late Antique and early Islamic periods to disam-biguate the vocalization of important texts, especially the Bible. The earliest step in this process was the implementation of the Syriac ‘diacritic dot’ system, which used a single dot to distinguish pairs of homographs: a dot ‘above’ marked a word with relatively-backed vowels, and a dot ‘below’ marked its homograph with relatively-fronted vowels. This graphic depiction conveyed a phonological association of ‘height’ with ‘backness’, and that association then entered the Maso-retic Hebrew tradition in the form of mille'el (‘above’) and millera' (‘below’) homograph comparisons. In turn, this principle of backness as ‘height’ informed the later placement of both the Syriac and the Tiberian Hebrew vowel points.1

Highlights

Scholars have debated the relationship between the Tiberian vocalization system and the Syriac linguistic tradition for well over a century.[2]
Comparative analyses of the earliest Syriac and Masoretic sources reveal that there is a substantial amount of crossover in the phonological principles of the Syriac and Tiberian vocalization systems, including in the principles that determined the placement of the vowel points themselves
When the Tiberian Masoretes needed an absolute vowel pointing system for their reading tradition, they could not rely on an evolving history of diacritic dots, since such dots did not exist in Hebrew

Summary

Introduction

Scholars have debated the relationship between the Tiberian vocalization system and the Syriac linguistic tradition for well over a century.[2]TO BELABOUR THE POINTSOn the most basic level, the Tiberian and Syriac vowel points appear similar, with both sets composed of dots, placed above or below consonants, to indicate the vowel qualities that follow them. Both Steiner and Dotan take this usage as evidence of the early relative vocalization system,[50] but Graetz originally went further, and hypothesized that the terms ‘above’ (milleel) and ‘below’ (millera) once referred to the positions of diacritic dots that, like in Syriac, indicated the relative quality of vowels.

Results

Conclusion