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  • From: Daniel Lundsgaard Skovenborg <waldeinburg AT yahoo.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Detail searching in Codex Leningradensis
  • Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2011 07:40:23 -0700 (PDT)

Hi,

After the recent questions on accent signs (subject: "question re accent
signs"), which required detail-oriented searching, I was thinking: Would
there be general interest in a Regular Expression search application for the
Leningrad Codex? (Regular Expressions is an extremely powerful search pattern
language.)

I was able to participate in the discussion using a primitive Perl script
that uses Regular Expressions to search the Westminster Leningrad Codex. I'll
consider developing it into something suitable for end-users, if such a tool
does not exist allready and if there's a general interest. It will be Open
Source and probably a web-app.

The strength—and weakness—of such an application that it is rigid and
searches the raw text: You can search for instances of meteg placed before
the vowel instead of after, but if you search for consonant-qamets-consonant
it will not match if there is a meteg, unless you include a "meteg or no
meteg"-pattern it in the rule. Of course, it's easy to create text-versions
where accents or vowels are filtered out.
Custom classes like "consonant", "vowel", "postpositive disjunctive accent"
etc. can easily be defined for inclusion in seach patterns.


Regarding existing search engines:

Mr. Ari Kinsberg found results for the discussion based on the Aleppo Codex
using the Mikraot Gedolot haKeter CD-ROM. It is thus not for the Leningrad
Codex (or easily available?). The search interface is quite innovative
(http://www.jewishlibraries.org/ajlweb/publications/proceedings/proceedings2004/aronson.pdf),
and my proposed search engine will not be as user friendly for users
unfamiliar with RegExps (unless it would be legal to reproduce the interface
for generating RegExps, but that would not be in the first version).


Bibleworks can search for accents but not for specific placement of accents.
Libronix 3 can do regular expressions, but it ignores Masoretic points –
unless I missed an option to switch it on.

- Daniel Lundsgaard Skovenborg




  • [b-hebrew] Detail searching in Codex Leningradensis, Daniel Lundsgaard Skovenborg, 06/24/2011

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