Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Giuseppe Regalzi" <regalzi AT infinito.it>]

Peter Kirk wrote:

>> Did Giuseppe give any reason for preferring the less specific
>> characters? It would seem to me generally preferable to use the Hebrew
>> block characters for Hebrew annotations, especially when the specific
>> use is as text critical annotations. Also it will work with current
>> implementations, whereas use of U+0307 and U+030A probably will not.

and Trevor Peterson answered:

> I emphasized "brief" because the referenced message contained the sum of the
> discussion. I suspect that he was thinking generic characters would be 
> better,
> since it is not just Hebrew and Aramaic scholars who need to indicate 
> degrees
> of certainty. (I'm not that familiar with how this is done in other 
> languages.
> I would assume, though, that the convention is not unique to NWS 
> scholarship.)
> If in fact the convention transcends various languages and scripts, it would
> make sense not to confine it to one language block.

As far as I know, in Greek and Latin scripts uncertain letters are routinely
marked with dots _below_ the line (see M. L. West, Textual Criticism and
Editorial Technique [Stuttgart 1973], part II -- sorry, I have not the volume 
at
hand for more detailed reference), so use of U+0323 COMBINING DOT BELOW is
mandatory, there. It is at least conceivable that other scripts may require
upperdots instead -- I don't know any, though.

Anyway, the case is clear for using the COMBINING DOT ABOVE as a sign of
uncertain reading in the Hebrew script: in the DSS extraordinary points were
commonly used by the scribes (for a few examples see Tov, Textual Criticism, 
2nd
ed., 214, 284; also 55-57 for the MT), so it is vital, I think, to 
discriminate
between these and the dots added by contemporary scholars.

As for the circlet marking very uncertain readings, the case for Unicode
COMBINING RING ABOVE is rather less clear; but I still think it advisable to
stuff as much discrimination as possible into our texts. Just think about
counting how many Masora Parva notes are in a critical edition of the Hebrew
Bible, in which the Masora Circle were used also to other aims...

Of course, this holds true as far as we are talking about encoding texts in
Unicode; from a typographical point of view, you may well use whatever 
character
you find more fitting (or others found more fitting, when they designed the
font...).

Giuseppe

--------------------------------------
Giuseppe Regalzi
University of Turin, Italy
regalzi AT tiscali.it
http://purl.org/net/regalzi/
http://www.orientalisti.net/