Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter.r.kirk AT ntlworld.com>]

On 16/07/2003 07:40, Trevor Peterson wrote:

> Peter, you and I have been through this issue before (on this list, I 
> believe). I'm personally inclined to agree with Sokoloff that producing Syriac 
> script is desirable in an Aramaic lexicon, if not also in a Hebrew one. But 
> I'm not sure that the editors of HALOT, for instance, share this sentiment. 
> They transcribe comparative evidence everywhere in Latin except where square 
> script is appropriate. Perhaps it was ony because of the lead type issue, but 
> I suspect that it was also the desire to make the material *appear* less 
> opaque to those untrained in these languages. This desire will probably remain 
> a factor in publishing, regardless of where technology goes. Fortunately for 
> this discussion, Syriac and Arabic are already established in Unicode. I would 
> not generally advocate the use of script fonts for epigraphic material, but I 
> consider manuscript traditions another matter.
>
> Trevor Peterson
> CUA/Semitics
>
>  
Well, personally I would be opposed to use of alphabets other than 
Hebrew and Latin in a Hebrew-English dictionary. Users of a dictionary 
should not be presumed to know languages or their scripts other than the 
dictionary's source and target languages and their scripts. I find the 
Syriac and Ethiopic forms in BDB annoying, though I can manage the 
Arabic ones. Similarly, in a paper discussing languages X and Y, it may 
be appropriate to set material in the scripts of languages X and Y as 
well as in the script of the main text of the paper, but the different 
script of language Z should not normally be used, in my opinion. I hope 
that the Unicode support for multiple scripts doesn't lead to scholars 
and typesetters showing off their abilities at the expense of the end user.

But the question I asked was not what we think should be done, but what 
actually is done, or perhaps what would be done apart from purely 
mechanical typographical restrictions.

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