Vowel Signs Research Articles

Exploring Word Recognition in a Semi-Alphabetic Script: The Case of Devanagari

Unlike other writing systems that are readily classifiable as alphabetic or syllabic in their structure, the Indic Devanagari script (of which Hindi is an example) has properties of both syllabic and alphabetic writing systems. Whereas Devanagari consonants are written in a linear left-to-right order, vowel signs are positioned nonlinearly above, below, or to either side of the consonants. This fact results in certain words in Hindi for which, in a given syllable, the vowel precedes the consonant in writing but follows it in speech. The current research exploited this property of the script to examine when the disparity between spatial and temporal sequencing would incur a processing cost and the implications of the findings from naming speed, accuracy, and writing order for the level at which words in Devanagari are segmented. The results support a partly phonemic and partly syllabic level of segmentation, consistent with the structural hybridity of the script.

Reading Difficulty Characteristics in Dyslexic and Hearing-impaired Students

This study examines reading difficulty characteristics in Hebrew in three reading-impaired populations. Two are groups of dyslexics: 100 readers with impaired auditory perception and 100 readers with impaired visual perception. The third group comprises 61 readers with deep/severe hearing impairment. All were elementary schools students in the second to sixth grades. The subjects were tested with a conventional Hebrew reading test. It examined types of reading errors (e.g. changes of phonetic structure or word content), self-correction in reading, reading speed, sequential/holistic reading, the effect of reading texts with and without the Hebrew diacritical vowel signs ('punctuation'), and the effect of meaningful or meaningless text material on the amount of reading errors. The literature describes distinctions between various kinds of reading disability related to auditory impairment and visual perception, and the definition of dyslexia as being one category or including sub-groups. Our research hypothesis was that similar characteristics of reading difficulties would be found amongst auditory perception-impaired students and hearing-impaired students, and that they would differ from those of students with impaired visual perception. Our findings support this hypothesis. Many of the sub-tests revealed similarity in the reading difficulties between the hearing impaired students and those with impaired auditory perception versus the visually impaired. An unexpected finding revealed that fourth grade students in all the groups were a special sub-group in each group. These findings suggest, in accordance with a major research approach, that dyslexia should be defined in terms of dyslexia sub-groups rather than as a single category.

The role of vowel signs in Hebrew: Beyond word recognition

After third grade of elementary school, native Hebrew speakers in Israel gradually become expert in reading two kinds of writing systems: the one they start with that contains signs for every phoneme of the spoken language, and another, to which they are steadily introduced, beginning with the second grade, which omits most vowels, together with few consonantal distinctions. Earlier studies indicate that single voweled words are read faster than unvoweled words, particularly in a naming task. This study examined another possible contribution of vowel signs in reading Hebrew: Its effect on memory and comprehension. It was assumed that if subvocalization facilitates memory of words while reading, and if vowel signs facilitate phonological processing, as is perhaps the case in naming tasks, then vowelization may intensify the processing of the articulatory loop and this should improve memory and comprehension. Our first two experiments assessed the contribution of vowel signs to the memory of word lists in either recognition memory or word recall tasks. The third experiment examined the contribution of vowel signs to the reading of connected texts. We found that vowel signs speeded up recognition memory of words in third graders, and improved the recall of words printed in the context of mixed lists in sixth graders. We also found that vowelization improved memory and comprehension of some prose texts.

Apologia pro transcriptione sua: A Mode of Transcribing Amharic for the Computer Age

Amharic has been transcribed with Latin letters in a number of ways, all of them workable in various ways, but not very suitable for the modern word processor. In non-specialist publications it is quite common to use the alphabet of the language of the writer with approximate phonetic values (English, French, German, Italian, etc.), and for most people, this is all they need. However, scholars have devised two mainly phonetic alphabets that represent Amharic pronunciation more precisely. Most scholars seem to use vowel symbols that have more or less (but never fully equivalent) Continental values (one alternative including a), but usually with an extra symbol: the inverted e (d) or e with a wedge over it, and some use a » e and perhaps i with a line over them. Thus, the seven Amharic vowel orders may be written a, u , i , e, d , o, or a , u , i or i with a line over it, a with a line over it, e or e with a line over it, d or e or e with a wedge over it, o. Some use Greek epsilon (e) for the first order vowel, and/or e for the fifth order. The consonants have nearly (but of course never exactly) English values, but a wedge is used above s, c, c, n and z, and in one case also over g (for the sy/sh, ch, ch, n/ny , zy/zh and j sounds). Of these I have only 5 (and n with a tilde instead of a wedge) on my computer. Further, dots are generally placed under the glottal consonants (also called explosives or ejectives), except, commonly, q , which represents glottal k (i.e., k). Individual inventiveness may also come into the picture, such as dg for gn for n/ny, etc. One of these alphabets (including the first row of vowel signs above) seems to be preferred by most scholars, but a modification of it, devised by

Thapsacus and Zeugma the crossing of the Euphrates in antiquity

One of the most uncertain points of historical geography of ancient Syria concerns the site of Thapsacus, even if the uncertainty has sometimes been disguised by assertive pronouncements. This city had enjoyed considerable importance during the Persian period, and possibly earlier, as a major crossing of the Euphrates and the main link between Syria and Mesopotamia. It appears for the first time in our record in the Bible, as the place on the Euphrates where the country “beyond the river” begins. Even if referring to the purported extent of the realm of Solomon “from Thapsacus to Gaza”, this mention clearly applies to the Persian satrapy of Abar-Nahara, meaning the whole of Syria and Palestine, and provides evidence for the conditions in the Achaemenid period. The crossing at Thapsacus itself might of course have been used much earlier, whatever the name.To the Massoretic vocalisation Tiphsah, generally accepted in modern translations, the form of Tapsah should be preferred, as found in the Syriac Bible provided with vowel signs centuries before the Hebrew original. This reading is moreover paralleled by the still earlier Septuagint version Θαψά. The Greek rendering confirms not only the vowels but also, if indirectly and by omission, the final pharyngeal of the name, in contrast to the usual ΘάΨακος found in Classical authors. This form is indeed unexpected, but transcriptions of foreign names do not always obey strict rules.

Biblia Babilónica. Jeremías , and: Biblia Babilónica. Fragmentos de Salmos, Job y Proverbios (review)

Hebrew Studies 31 (1990) 119 Reviews within the biblical period. the implications of canonization. and the transfonnations affecting prophecy in the later period. are dealt with only in passing. if at all. For those who wish to survey the texts in an orderly fashion and can afford the prohibitive price tag. the book may nevertheless be of service. Joseph Blenldnsopp University ofNotre Dame Notre Dame, IN 46556 BIBLIA BABIL6NICA. JEREMiAS. By Amparo Alba Cecilia. Textos y Estudios "Cardenal Cisneros" 41. Pp. xxi + 164. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas. 1987. Paper. BIBLIA BABIL6NICA. FRAGMENTOS DE SALMOS, JOB Y PROVERBIOS. By Alejandro Dfez-Macho. Textos y Estudios "Cardenal Cisneros" 42. pp. lxxiv + 106. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas. 1987. Paper. The second of these works is a final contribution by Alejandro DfezMacho to the understanding of texts with Babylonian pointing which he did so much to advance. It publishes the text of MS 508 A of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. a manuscript which he studied in 1954-1955. The description which he published as a result of that study (in Estudios biblicos 18. 1959) is reprinted as the introduction to the book. The preface. dated 1981. recognizes the valuable contribution of Angeles Navarro in the preparation of the text and apparatus of the edition. without which it could not have been published. An important product of DfezMacho 's industry has thus been preserved for scholars. It is much to be regretted. however. that he did not have opportunity to write a new introduction reflecting the knowledge gained through his continuing studies of MSS with Babylonian vocalization. The MS edited here was evidently copied from a Babylonian manuscript by a Yemenite. who made some additions to the vocalization. Further additions were made by another Yemenite hand. The text (almost half of the book of Psalms and a few chapters from Job and Proverbs) is presented in typescript with the vowel signs added by hand. (Accent signs are not used.) Hebrew Studies 31 (1990) 120 Reviews An apparatus lists consonantal and vocalic variants in Biblia hebraica and in early Babylonian MSS. It also comments on difficult readings in the work of the original scribe (which was not always clear) and gives the changes and additions made by the rather active second hand. The work is somewhat careless. The text shows occasional errors (Pss 71:17, 124:7, Prov 24:17). Variant Tiberian vowelling is quite often not noted in the apparatus (as with pausal vowelling in Pss 68:30, 69:10, 71:3). This may lead to uncertainty in the interpretation of Babylonian signs. Thus the qame$ of the 2ms pronominal suffix may appear before the kaf (ps 69:6) or even before the preceding letter (ps 71:22). It is uncertain, however, whether the vowel sign has been badly placed in these cases, or whether they have not been listed as examples of variant pausal vowelling due to oversight. A survey of the edition suggests that Ofez-Macho's view of the value of the MS relative to the Textus receptus (pp. lx-lxvi) should be modified. For instance, a yod not found in L is often used before a 2ms pronominal suffix . This occurs almost invariably where L has atnah or silluq; 1~ (Prov 25:21) is an exception. This yod is used in sixteen cases before a suffix bound to a noun which is vowelled as feminine singular, including six of eight cases of1m,., in pausal position. This appears to be part of a general tendency to mark pausal vowelling (cf. also such cases as tI'Tl' in Ps 132:9, 16). Manuscripts such as L provide the same information by means of a note that the form is haser-that is, it includes a vowel which could be marked by a vowel letter but, in the standard tradition, is not so marked. (Such notes, as on forms of 1mc~ with pausal vowelling, have no implication for the meaning of the word.) The use both of vowel letters and of notes of this sort no doubt reflects a period before the systematic use of vowel signs, so that Dfez-Macho is correct as seeing it as...

〓藏〓音〓料P. T. 1228所〓的中中古〓〓河西方言韵尾的〓音

The Chinese texts in Tibetan script discovered at Dunhuang_??_are recognized as basic materials for studying the Middle Chinese Hexi_??_dialect of about the ninth and tenth Centuries. Miller 1967 pointed out various instances in this material where the M.C. rime-ending/-i/is transcribed by the Tibetan symbol -'u. He also noted in photographs of the famous‘Qianziwen_??_’text that there are two kinds of style representing the Tibetan symbol u, used to transcribe Chinese rimeendings. But the distinction is very subtle.In the new Tibetan transcription material P.T. 1228, the Tibetan vowel sign u which transcribes Chinese rime-endings also has two styles that are easily distinguishable. u1 is only used for transcribing the main vowel of a Chinese syllable, and this style is the same as is usual in other materials. On the other hand, u2 is only used for transcribing the rimeendings of the four rime groups Liu_??_, Xiaoi_??_, Xie_??_, and Geng_??_and its style is unique. In representing the sounds of Xie_??_and Geng_??_rimes, Div. I and II rimes are transcribed with a rime-ending in-'u2, but Div. III and IV rimes lack any transcription for rime-endings, perhaps because they had already disappeared. From the fact that M.C. rimeendings */-i/, */-u/and */-η/are all transcribed by -u2, we can understand that in the M.C. dialect which is the basis of this material, these rime-endings had common features, that is, they were front and lax.

“Thorn” and “Minus” in Hieroglyphic Luvian Orthography

It has long been known that HLuvian sign 383, an oblique stroke (\), when added to another sign, indicates the presence of a postvocalic r: see the references cited by Laroche, HH 205. The “thorn”, as it is often called, may indicate /r/ alone, or a sequence /ra/ or /ri/. The now standard transliteration ra/i is thus a cover symbol for all three possibilities. The actual reading in any particular case may be determined only on comparative grounds, internal or external. As examples of /r/, /ra/, and /ri/1 may cite respectively dat.-loc. pl. (“FINES”)I + ra/i-ha-za = /irhanza/ “boundaries” (cf. Hitt. irḫa- “idem”), pret. 3rd sg. i + ra/i = /ira/ “went”, and pres. 3rd sg. i + ra/i = /iri/ “goes”.Hawkins, Morpurgo-Davies and Neumann, HHL 171 f, have argued that in internal and final position the combination 209 + 383 (), in addition to i + ra/i, may also indicate ri+i = /ri/. That is, in combination with a vowel sign V, the “thorn” may indicate the sequence /rV/ instead of/Vra/i/. Note that the HLuvian syllabary has no CV sign for /ri/, while sign 412 (and less often sign 103) spells /ru/. Evidence for the reading ri+i comes from alternations such as abl./inst. DEUS-na-ri+i beside deus-na-ti-(i) “by/from the god(s)” or tu-pi-ri+i beside tu-pi-ti-i “strikes”.

New Indo-Roman Script for Transliteration of all the Indian Languages

In this paper, an attempt is made to evolve Indo-Roman script to transliterate all the Indian Languages phonetically. Phonetic assignment of Roman fonts is different in majority of the European languages. This paper also considers the unique assignment of Indian Spelling Phonemes to each of Roman fonts. Four instructional fonts have been used to identify (a) short and long vowel signs.(b) soft, hard and heavy consonants and(c) vowel signs and vowels.Adaptation of the proposed Indo-Roman script to telegraphy, printers, video-terminals have also been discussed in detail.

The Dependence on Graphemes and on Their Translation to Phonemes in Reading: A Developmental Perspective

THIS STUDY COMPARED CHILDREN and adult readers in the degree to which they are able to avoid grapheme-to-phoneme translation; in how much they benefit from redundant phonemic information; and in the degree to which they are disturbed by minor changes in graphemes which are still phonemically appropriate. Hebrew readers begin reading instruction with words in which vocalic information is transmitted by vowel signs written below and above the letters; later on, they learn to read the same words without the vowel signs. Also, a change of vowel signs in Hebrew may or may not involve a change of phonemic value of the words. These facts were exploited experimentally in this study (following Navon & Shimron, 1981). Subjects were asked to name Hebrew words by their letters only. The words were sometimes vowelized correctly, and at other times, they were either unvowelized or misvowelized in a way which either preserved or did not preserve phonemic values. It was found that both children and adults were unable to resist grapheme-tophoneme translation, that both children and adults benefitted from redundant information in their normal reading, and that children but not adults were sensitive to minor changes in graphemes which still preserved phonemic values.

Does word naming involve grapheme-to-phoneme translation? Evidence from Hebrew

Are grapheme-to-phoneme rules automatically applied when a word pattern is encoded? This question was examined using Hebrew words. In written Hebrew vocalic information is sometimes transmitted by vowel signs written below the letters, but most often is omitted altogether. Hebrew speakers were asked to name Hebrew words by their letters only, disregarding vowel signs. Naming was equally fast for words with no vowel signs, with correct vowel signs, and with incorrect ones that nevertheless preserved word sound. Naming was slower when the vowel signs were incompatible with the word sound. That this is mediated by visual mechanisms was ruled out by a further experiment. It is concluded that grapheme-to-phoneme translation is a natural response to written words, at least when naming is required.

Some New Fragments of Aquila On Malachi and Job?

A small fragment recently discovered among the Cairo Geniza manuscripts in the Cambridge University Library contains some glosses displaying striking affinities with the version ascribed to Aquila. The interest which attaches to this discovery justifies a rapid preliminary publication with a minimum of commentary. The fragment (T-S NS 309.9) presents, in parallel columns, Hebrew lemmata and Greek glosses written in Hebrew characters. Some further entries are written vertically. The glosses on the recto are from Malachi and from Job xxvii-xxviii. The Job glosses continue overleaf, but the verso is so badly damaged that little can be read (see plate), and it will be ignored here. The manuscript is of medieval date. Its provenance is unknown, but it certainly originated in a Greek-speaking Jewish milieu. D.-S. Blondheim argued 2) that Greek-speaking Jews kept alive an oral tradition going back to the ancient versions, especially that of Aquila; this new discovery strikingly confirms his thesis. Although the glosses include several later Greek forms, they also preserve a number of renderings which are characteristic of the version of Aquila. In some cases the glosses agree with readings of Aquila attested in other documents, and it is a reasonable inference that in other cases, too, they represent the same ancient version. In what follows I have copied the Hebrew lemmata, retaining the consonantal spelling of the manuscript but omitting the vowel signs, and the Greek glosses in Hebrew characters. I have attempted to transliterate the glosses back into Greek, again keeping the spelling of the fragment, with a few necessary corrections. The identification

The Negatives in Hieroglyphic Luwian

The reading of the Hieroglyphic signs had from the early days of decipherment been linked with that of other signs, in particular with , and with the two forms of the RELATIVE, an association based on similarity of appearance as well as the parallelism of the distinction by means of the double stroke at the base. The evaluation of as the “vowel series” i/ī/a/ā by Meriggi, and the recognition of the RELATIVE signs as such by Forrer, divided the way between these two groups. The phonetic reading of the relative remained long in doubt. An earlier reading as ia etc., based on a confusion with the “vowel signs” was rejected by Gelb, while Gelb's own reading of ki was discarded by Bossert, who on largely invalid grounds postulated a phonetic development kwa > hwa > wa. In spite of the dubious points in his argument, Bossert has generally been followed, at least in his reading hwa, especially since the identification of a number of Hieroglyphic verbs employing in their writing the signs REL/REL2 with corresponding cuneiform Luwian verbs written with a hu or ku(-wa). Most recently it has been argued that the relative belongs to the class of -i-stems with a presumed reading hwi-.

Indian Place Names in South America and the Antilles. II

(1960). Indian Place Names in South America and the Antilles. II. Names: Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 197-219.

Hittite i before Vowels

In LANGUAGE 18.259-70 (1942) we began a discussion of the question whether Hittite of the time when our texts were written distinguished phonemically between syllabic and consonantal u and i. On account of lack of direct evidence concerning these sounds in anteconsonantal and final position we confined our attention to the antevocalic position, and considerations of space compelled us to postpone the presentation of evidence concerning i. Our present purpose is to discuss the evidence concerning the latter phoneme. Sturtevant has collected evidence to show' that at the time in question Hittite had only three vowel phonemes, a, u, and i, although there were five vowel signs, a, u, u, e, and i. He concluded from the available evidence that at the time when the language was reduced to writing there was only one back-vowel phoneme and that, accordingly, the signs u and ui were equivalent at all periods of the language. In the early period, however, there were clearly two front vowels, e and i, and traditional spelling maintained the old orthographic distinction to a considerable extent even after the change of Early Hitt. e to i. This traditional use of the vowel sign e and of the syllabic signs containing e (e.g. ne, te, en, el) has restricted the alternation between certain of the possible orthographies for i before a dissimilar vowel; the distribution of the several orthographies differs greatly from what we have observed in studying u before a dissimilar vowel. In particular we are confronted with one problem that had no analogue in our former paper. Such a pair as ti-i-e-iz-zi 'he takes his stand' and ti-ya-an-zi 'they take their stand' pretty certainly represented in the early period [tjetsi] and [tjantsi] or [tietsi] and [tiantsi]; while there is no reason to suppose that the 3d pl. form was any different from this at the time when our texts were written, variant writings of the 3d singular indicate either [titsi] or [tijitsi] alongside of analogical [tiatsi] or the like. Since neither [titsi] nor [tijitsi] contains i before a dissimilar vowel, we postpone our treatment of these and similar forms to pp. 217-20 below. Analogical forms with [-atsi] are, on the other hand, included in Tables 2 and 3 (pp. 211-5). Table 1 corresponds to Table 1 of our article on Hittite u Before Vowels; 2 it lists 19 different ways of writing i (or, as the case may be, of writing i, y, iy, or iyy) before dissimilar vowels. Some of these orthographies are very common, but they grade off to two that we have found in one occurrence each, namely (6) u-e-i-ya[-at-tin] (KUB 19.1.2.49) and (19) pi-e-i-ya-an-zi (KUB 12.19.3.14). In Table 1, C stands for any consonantal initial of a syllabic sign. The assignment of forms to orthographies (7), (8), (10), (13), (15), and (19) is in part a reflection of the traditional practice of transcribing with i all syllabic signs that may be used indifferently for syllables containing i or e. There is no

A Hebraeo-Sufic Poem

MOHAMMEDAN SUFIsmI and Judaism are by their nature far apart. Yet there exists evidence of the early encroachment of the former on the latter. A specimen of this was published by me in the Jewish Quarterly Review in 1920, and there are others still unpublished in the hoards of the Cairo Genizah fragments in the Cambridge University Library. One of them consisting of two leaves in Arabic, written in Hebrew square characters, forms the subject of the following pages. It is a poem, written like an ordinary prose piece, and headed: Says the Imdm, the Philosopher, Abu Mohammed.' The poem is incomplete, the last four lines being missing. This we gather from another but complete copy which is found at the end of a MS. volume at the British Museum 2 This poem, together with some others, originally formed part of a special pamphlet, as can be seen from the fact that the first page remained blank. This copy of the poem is written in Arabic characters in the ordinary form of Arabic poetry. It has no heading, but the writer added occasional vowel signs. The metre is ramal. A palaeographic comparison of the two copies shows that the Hebrew one is much the older of the two, revealing a style of writing not later than the thirteenth century, whereas the other, to judge from the paper and the script, cannot be older than the sixteenth century. I have been unable to trace any other copy, although it doubtless existed or exists somewhere. There is even a probability that it was printed in some Eastern publication inaccessible to me. In any case several discrepancies in both texts show that they were taken from different originals. The heading mentioned above gives no sure clue as to the author. A philosopher of the name of Abu Mohammed, who became so popular among Jews that one of them copied his poem, even adding to his name the formula for deceased pious Moslems, is not men-