Vowel Points Research Articles

A Torah Manuscript from Iran from the End of the Fifteenth Century with Haftarot and Psalms

Abstract This article analyzes a paper manuscript, containing the Pentateuch, Haftarot and Psalms. Only five medieval Persian Pentateuch manuscripts have survived, four from the fifteenth century and one from the sixteenth century. The selected manuscript is one of the four surviving manuscripts from the fifteenth century (1483–1484). It is the earliest surviving manuscript from Iran from the Middle Ages that includes the Pentateuch, the Haftarot, and the Psalms with vowel points, accents, Masorah magna and parva. A comparison of the manuscript with the Aleppo Codex and with five traditions from different regions (accurate Oriental Masoretic codices, Yemenite manuscripts, Sefardi manuscripts, Ashkenazi manuscripts, and Italian manuscripts) shows that this fifteenth-century manuscript written in Central Asia preserves and represents an ancient tradition with respect to the text, sections, and the Songs that is similar to the accurate Oriental Masoretic Pentateuchs. Our manuscript is witness to an ancient tradition that preserves a very accurate text in the Iranian region, and is close to the Aleppo Codex, and similar to Oriental manuscripts of the tenth and eleventh centuries written in the East, without alternate traditions that corrupted the text.

How Much Does Lookahead Matter for Disambiguation? Partial Arabic Diacritization Case Study

Abstract We suggest a model for partial diacritization of deep orthographies. We focus on Arabic, where the optional indication of selected vowels by means of diacritics can resolve ambiguity and improve readability. Our partial diacritizer restores short vowels only when they contribute to the ease of understandability during reading a given running text. The idea is to identify those uncertainties of absent vowels that require the reader to look ahead to disambiguate. To achieve this, two independent neural networks are used for predicting diacritics, one that takes the entire sentence as input and another that considers only the text that has been read thus far. Partial diacritization is then determined by retaining precisely those vowels on which the two networks disagree, preferring the reading based on consideration of the whole sentence over the more naïve reading-order diacritization. For evaluation, we prepared a new dataset of Arabic texts with both full and partial vowelization. In addition to facilitating readability, we find that our partial diacritizer improves translation quality compared either to their total absence or to random selection. Lastly, we study the benefit of knowing the text that follows the word in focus toward the restoration of short vowels during reading, and we measure the degree to which lookahead contributes to resolving ambiguities encountered while reading. L’Herbelot had asserted, that the most ancient Korans, written in the Cufic character, had no vowel points; and that these were first invented by Jahia–ben Jamer, who died in the 127th year of the Hegira. “Toderini’s History of Turkish Literature,” Analytical Review (1789)

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

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

Bazı Ses Olaylarında Bulaşma Sebebi Olarak Arap Alfabesi

Changes which occur in the phonetic structure of a language are called phonetic events. One of the reasons for phonetic change is contamination in which a word or form influences another word or form and a different form with common features arises. In earlier periods when Turkish was written in Arabic letters, the fact that the Arabic letters “vav” and “ya” corresponded to both vowel and consonant phonemes caused there to be some different pronunciations in Arabic and Persian words. In other words, the letter “ya” which is expected to be pronounced as a vowel is pronounced as a consonant, and the letters “vav” and “ya” are pronounced as vowels although they are expected to be pronounced as consonants. As a result of these variant pronunciations, some words evolved into forms that are different from the corresponding words in their original language. Phonemes such as “g” and “nasal n” which are not found in the Arabic alphabet are counterbalanced in the Ottoman alphabet with “kâf-i Farisî” borrowed from the Persian alphabet and “kâf-i nûnî” which Turks developed. But these phonemes were written with Arabic kef in manuscripts due to greater ease of writing. In some Turkish words which include these phonemes and which are used in some Arabic dialects, different pronunciations exist due to the fact that the mentioned phonemes in the Arabic alphabets are written with the letter kef. The reason for these phonetic events which are based on contamination is the system of vowel points in the Arabic alphabet. As some words written with the same letters were developed with different vowel points, synonymous words came into existence. It is in fact contamination which determines the direction of all phonetic events that emerge in these words undergoing phonetic events through different reasons. The reason for contamination in those events is the Arabic alphabet, that is, writing in more general terms. The fact that phonetic events arise firstly in spoken language indicates that it is not the typical characteristic of writing to cause phonetic events although this is possible. Examples that belong to the period of Old Anatolian Turkish and that undergo this kind of phonetic event are given in the study.

The Early Modern Debate over the Age of the Hebrew Vowel Points: Biblical Criticism and Hebrew Scholarship in the Confessional Republic of Letters.

This article presents a reassessment of the seventeenth-century debate over the origin of the Hebrew vowel points. Previous accounts have treated this debate from the perspective of Protestant scholarship, with the reception of Louis Cappel's Arcanum punctationis revelatum (1624) used to measure progress or reaction according to how far scholars accepted or rejected-the latter for theological reasons-the critical advance his work has been taken to represent. The article argues this mischaracterizes the issue, showing why the question only became especially pressing in the mid-1640s in the context of broader developments in Catholic and Protestant biblical criticism.

ÖĞRETMEN GÖRÜŞLERİ DOĞRULTUSUNDA İMAM-HATİP ORTAOKULU 8. SINIF ARAPÇA DERS KİTABININ DEĞERLENDİRİLMESİ (NİTEL VERİLER IŞIĞINDA)

In this study, it is sought answers for the questions what are the weakest and most powerful aspects of 8th grade Arabic Textbook and what kinds of recommendations would you make to make the textbook better? The answers are gathered via an internet link created as https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e1FApQLS and with the participation of 56 teachers working at Imam-Hatip Secondary Schools and tutoring 8th grade Arabic lessons. The textbooks should be accepted by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) and should also be appropriate for the curriculum. Although the textbooks are selected in this direction, the appropriateness or inadequacy of the textbooks becomes prominent during the lessons. From this point of view, it is tried to reveal the weak and strong aspects of the 8th Grade Arabic Textbook, taught in Imam-Hatip Secondary Schools. The teachers participated in this study are asked to express their opinions about what could be done to make the textbook better. According to the study results, the lack of enough grammar exercises in the book, the use of textbook being above the learners’ level, the absence of sufficient vowel points on the words, the integrity of the subjects, the absence of sufficient verb inflections and the lack of vocabulary sets are among the weaknesses of the textbook. The book takes the most credit about the visuals. Again, the book is deemed successful with the use of current words in terms of communicational aspects. Using from easy to difficult principle during the lessons is one of the positive aspects of the book. The book taking credit for writing and type size is also praised for being instructive and understandable. In order to make the book better, teachers make suggestions such as ensuring the integrity of the subjects, using enough vowel points on words, giving more space to grammar and pattern expressions, using different teaching techniques and supporting the book in EBA (Educational Informatics Network).

Coplas de <em>Las hazañas de los Macabeos</em>

Se presenta la edición transcrita del texto de la copia de Las hazañas de los Macabeos («Coplas de Hanuká»), a partir de dos ediciones aljamiadas del siglo XIX; la más antigua (1828-1829) escrita en letra cuadrada vocalizada, y la más moderna (1879-1880) en letra raší no vocalizada. La copla consta de ochenta cuartetas de rima alterna y se divide en diez etapas siguiendo la caracterización literaria presentada en un anterior artículo.

The effect of permissibility and grammatical conditions on diversifying meanings

Arabs were men of eloquence and manifestation in speech. They were supported by their language " Arabic" with what it possessed of a wide range of vocabulary and accuracy in showing the meaning and flexibility of structures. The task of the grammarians, in a large deal of it, was only describing the flexibility of the structures rather than inventing ways of expressions only to enlarge the number, of the ways. However, who reads what the grammarians have allowed and stipulated in some rules, without scrutinizing it he may think, as some researchers claim that it was only for enlarging the number or shortening without following what had been admitted in the structure or what had been provided in the rule of "changing" in the meaning. This research tries to show that the Grammatical Permissibility functions for variating the meanings by means of showing the tiny differences between the meanings that some of which other aspects have been permitted. And in demonstrating how the change of the vowel points show the meanings approving that the matter is not as it has been claimed. So for that aim I've chosen quests that I find in them two or three aspects such as the Amputated Adjective which is devoted for praising or dispraising and "Belhe" and some others. I've also chosen the quest of "the subject Representation" on which the grammarians, conditions "term" are many. I've shown that these conditions have been established according to the meaning and for it. Then finally I concluded with the consequences yielded by the research.

Some Early Citizens of the Respublica Litterarum Sacrarum: Christian Scholars and the Masorah Before 1550

Traditional accounts of the development of Christian biblical scholarship in the sixteenth century have rightly emphasized the role played by Elijah Levita and his Massoreth ha-Massoreth, which traced the evolution of the Hebrew text of the Bible. Elijah argued that the Masoretes, Jewish grammarians of the first millennium CE, had devised the vowel points and accents found in the Hebrew text and recorded the variant readings that appeared in its textual apparatus. In fact, the Syntagma of the English scholar Robert Wakefield, printed in 1534, brought together a wide range of relevant material from Jewish and Christian sources, explained it expertly and defended the accuracy of the Hebrew text. Informed discussion of the Hebrew text in Christian scholarship began long before Elijah’s book appeared.

Samuel Archivolti and the Antiquity of the Hebrew Pointing

The debate over the antiquity of the Hebrew vowel points raged among both Jewish and Christian Hebraists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Among Jewish grammarians, Samuel Archivolti was one of the earliest critics of the revolutionary ideas of Elijah Levita. Yet Archivolti's work, while not wholly forgotten, has remained largely inaccessible to modern scholars working in this field. Presented here for the first time in English, along with annotations, is Archivolti's treatise on the topic, a critical text for understanding one side of this debate.

Speech perception: Ideas and concepts initiated by Reinier Plomp

In the late 1960s, a central issue in the research group on speech and hearing at TNO, headed by Reinier Plomp, was the relation between the perceptual and physical characteristics of sound. One impressive example concerned the research on vowel sounds, conducted together with Louis Pols. By adapting novel approaches for studying supra-threshold phenomena (triadic comparison of stimuli, Kruskal’s multi-dimensional scaling technique), the perceptual differences among vowel sounds could be visualized in a two- or three-dimensional representation of vowel points. This representation appeared to be in excellent agreement with a physical configuration of the vowel points, based on one-third-octave band analysis of the vowel sounds. It is conceptually only a small step from these isolated steady-state vowels, corresponding to points in a multi-dimensional space, to running speech resulting in a trace within that space. The spectral distances between successive points in such a speech trace reflect the rate-of-change in the speech signal as perceived by a listener. This framework of thinking, i.e., the perceptual relevance of projecting speech in the spectral domain, did lay at the roots of our later work on the development of objective measures for quantifying speech intelligibility.

:From Christian Hebraism to Jewish Studies: Johannes Buxtorf (1564-1629) and Hebrew Learning in the Seventeenth Century

This book examines how Johannes Buxtorf's works helped to transform seventeenth-century Hebrew studies from the hobby of a few experts into a recognized academic discipline. The first two chapters examine Buxtorf's career as a professor of Hebrew and as an editor and censor of Jewish books in Basel. Successive chapters analyze his anti-Jewish polemical books, grammars and lexicons, and manuals for Hebrew composition and literature, including the first bibliography devoted to Jewish books. The final chapters treat his work in biblical studies, examining his contribution to Targum and Massorah studies, and his position on the age and doctrinal authority of the Hebrew vowel points. The chapters on anti-Jewish polemics and the vowel points will interest Jewish historians and Church historians.

The Ketibiqere in the Aramaic Portions of Ezra and Daniel

language represented by the Tiberian vowel points in the biblical text (Q). By way of contrast, most previous work on the date and provenance of BA has concentrated on the consonantal text (K).1 At an earlier date, scholars studying the question of dialects in Ezra and Daniel drew mainly on Old Aramaic (OA) texts which come from the 8th-5th centuries B.C.E. or on Egyptian Aramaic, socalled Imperial or Official Aramaic (OfA). Currently, the outcome of this research is to suggest that the Aramaic of K in both Ezra and Daniel antedates the emergence of Middle Aramaic dialects with distinctive Western or Eastern features. The K appears to belong to the stratum of OfA, albeit, in the case of Daniel it may belong to the very end of that period.2 Opinions vary regarding the identity of the Q with the Aramaic represented in the K. Although it is often assumed that the language represented in the vocalization of BA antedates the language of targumic Aramaic and cognate literature3 at the present time the linguistic provenance and character of the Q remains

Medieval Correspondence Education: The Responsa of the Gaonate

ALTHOUGH THE TALMUDIC ACADEMIES of Sura and Pumbeditha in Babylonia ceased to function almost one thousand years ago, their contributions to Jewish learning and to Jewish unity have so impressed contemporary Jews that they still recite the ancient prayer, Yekum Purkan, as part of the traditional Sabbath morning service in behalf of our scholars and teachers in the land of Israel and in the land of Babylon, the heads of the academies and of the chiefs of the captivity.... As early as A.D. 220, Abba-Arika founded the renowned academy which was to flourish for eight centuries. Later, Sura's great rival, Pumbeditha, gave Jewish scholars another Talmudic center for research and teaching, and from both of these celebrated academies, inspirational messages flowed unceasingly to the Jewish communities throughout the Diaspora. The early sages of Sura, the Amoraim, devoted themselves to Talmudic interpretation, and their successors, the Savoraim, judged the Talmud and enlarged it considerably. At the beginning of the seventh century, the Massoretic scholars added even greater glory to the academies by making further contributions in both schools to their great project of supplying vowel points and accents to the Biblical text. From A.D. 300 to A.D. 1ooo, Babylonia became the center of Jewish life through the influence of the scholars of the Babylonian academies. When the Arabs conquered in 637, they encouraged the exilic Jews to develop their communities within the framework of the Islamic state. Until 1050, the fate of the Jews in Islam was nat-

Reflexes of French mecanique in German Dialects

that the longer, now largely obsolescent forms Mickel, Mickete, Mickenie, Mekeni, and Mickeneiing, together with similar forms in Alsatian3 and the Germanspeaking parts of Switzerland,4 may point to a borrowing of Fr. m6canique, which in the eighteenth century was still written with ch.6 Nevertheless, the shortening in the Swabian form [mige] is extensive, and the final vowel, a short close e [e], needs to be accounted for. It might be, Fischer continues, that this vowel points to derivation from the verb mickcen [miga]6 by analogy to other deverbatives like Mene [-e] 'team of horses, etc.' from menen [-a] 'to urge on horses, etc., while plowing'.7 Finally, Fischer mentions the possibility of contamination of Fr. mdcanique with a second and possibly a third Swabian Micke. The former, meaning 'pointed loaf of bread', is related to MHG micke 'a small loaf', obsolete Eng. miche, Fr. miche and Lat. mica 'little crumb'. The latter, meaning 'forked wood', is related to Low Ger. mikke 'anything fork-shaped',8 Middle Dutch mikke, mic, New Dutch mik 'fork shaped pole', Eng. mitch in mitchboard 'crotch to support a boom, yard', and Fr. m7che 'linstock; wick, etc.' The meanings of these homonyms is paralleled, for example, by Swabian [wek],9 which means both 'roll, bun of white flour, slightly pointed and split deeply in the middle' and 'wedge, especially of iron, which is driven into wood for splitting', or Swabian [khaidl],o meaning 'large piece of bread' and 'wedge'.

Three Notes in Hebrew Lexicography

The Massoretic reading ,t?? 1 CU'1 which is translated into English by 'he poureth out of the same' has been generally considered unsatisfactory, and thus some modern critics, following the Greek and Syriac versions, have suggested the emendation Mth Mt that is, 'he poureth out from one (cup) into another.' But need hardly say that this emendation does not render the expression less ambiguous and cumbersome. venture, therefore, to offer the following new explanation of the term MM. We need only slightly to alter the vowel points of the word, reading MM instead of the present n to see that the Massoretic text is on the whole correct. ,tD is not the demonstrative Mt with the particle 7n, but it is rather the substantive M? with the pronominal suffix A. The phrase 7tM V may thus be rendered 'and he poureth out her to.' As to the meaning of the term t?, we may, in the first place, conjecture from its context that it is synonymous with I ION, 1n D, all of which occur in the same verse, meaning 'wine.' Furthermore, in Arabic, too, this term, invariably written muzz, muzzat, mizza', means 'wine.' It is mentioned in the Tahzib al-Alfa4z and in the Lisan al-'Arab among the words meaning 'wine.' The native Arab lexicographers illustrate this meaning of the term In by many citations from ancient poets, for which may refer to the Tahzib just cited.