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b-hebrew - [b-hebrew] Hebrew with Aramaic, Phoenician etc in scholarly publications

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Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peter.r.kirk AT ntlworld.com>
  • To: Biblical Languages <biblical-languages AT lists.ibiblio.org>, Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Hebrew with Aramaic, Phoenician etc in scholarly publications
  • Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 02:40:25 -0700

I wonder if anyone on either of these lists can help me with a question that has come up on the Unicode list (http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/). Outline proposals have been made to define Unicode encodings for Aramaic (based on Palmyrene letter shapes and presumably intended for inscriptional rather than biblical Aramaic), Phoenician (to include paleo-Hebrew), Samaritan, and a few other ancient Semitic scripts - see links from http://www.unicode.org/roadmaps/index.html. I have questioned whether these scripts need to be considered as separate from the Hebrew script, which is actually based closely on the Aramaic square script. The lists of letter names (consonants only) are identical (or very nearly so), and the letter shapes are not necessarily more different than modern cursive Hebrew is from the standard prototypical Hebrew letter shapes.

One of the criteria for whether a new script is justified for an ancient language (which was decisive in the recent decision to encode Coptic as a separate script from Greek) is whether both scripts are used in scholarly publications with distinct appearances. Thus, presumably, there are publications in which both Greek and Coptic are quoted and distinct scripts are used.

So, my question at last is: Are there scholarly publications (more recent than BDB!) which quote inscriptional Aramaic, Phoenician, Samaritan, paleo-Hebrew etc as well as Hebrew? In such cases, what scripts are used for Aramaic, Phoenician etc? BDB (1906) quoted these and even south Arabian inscriptions in Hebrew script. But what is the modern practice? Are ancient alphabets (other than Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac etc which are in modern use) ever used in such publications? Are these languages ever transcribed in Hebrew script, or only in Latin script transliteration? I am interested in practice in Israeli journals in modern Hebrew as well as in journals in western languages.

--
Peter Kirk
peter.r.kirk AT ntlworld.com
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~peterkirk/






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