Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Trevor Peterson <06PETERSON AT cua.edu>]

>===== Original Message From Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org> =====
>But if you are going to produce a multi-script dictionary like BDB, but
>with computer technology rather than hot metal, you need a coherent
>system for writing each of those scripts.

OK, I see what you're thinking. I was bringing up two different opinions of 
yours. My point regarding multiple languages (like Chinese, which Karl 
brought 
up) was that SIL deals extensively with living, national languages. Since 
Unicode was designed primarily to meet the needs of living language 
communities, it makes sense that SIL would get involved with Unicode. I would 
say that this is not a need that extends to the interests of most Semitists. 
What Semitists do need (sometimes) is a way to produce the native scripts of 
the languages they work with. This is mostly for publishing purposes. 
Obviously, a publisher of an edition of the Hebrew Bible, for instance, needs 
to be able to print in Hebrew script. Arguably, a lexicon is another such 
situation. But there are several good ways to meet this need. For example, 
Makor, which is designed to work with Lambda/Omega, can produce high-quality 
Hebrew text from MCW input. Since the complete text of BHS happens to be 
available as a free download in MCW, this is a useful system. (I asked you a 
while back if there was a freely available Unicode text of the Hebrew Bible, 
and as I recall, there was none. This, BTW, is one of my considerations in 
all 
of this--if I am starting a dissertation right now that will probably require 
me to quote frequently from the Hebrew Bible, should I enter everything 
manually so I can take advantage of Unicode?) For more general communication, 
it is not so important to be able to use native script. So, as pertains to 
the 
needs of Semitists, older approaches tend to work just fine. (Incidentally, 
when we discussed the use of native scripts in lexica before I brought up the 
two dictionaries of Jewish Aramaic by Sokoloff. The first was printed 
originally in the days of lead type and used only square script due to cost 
constraints. To my knowledge, it was not the advent of Unicode but that of 
digital printing methods that enabled them to use other Aramaic scripts in 
the 
second dictionary and the new appendix to the first.)

>If Semitists have got on
>without such devices, it is only because they have not tried to
>reproduce BDB with computer technology but have allowed their
>publications to be less multi-script than they used to be.

As I say, I'm pretty sure that Sokoloff did not use Unicode in producing his 
second dictionary. I might add that Peter Daniels has worked extensively on 
producing fonts, for the express purpose of publishing in multiple scripts. 
When he says that Unicode is not necessary for Semitists, he is speaking from 
a knowledge of what it takes to publish with computer fonts.
>
>It would be interesting to speculate whether limitations of computer
>(and, earlier, typewriter) technology have driven the general 20th
>century move to use more transliteration. But I can name at least one
>work in which Hebrew was transliterated rather than written in script
>because of computer technology limitations (of 15 years ago): my MA
>dissertation from London Bible College, in which I was able to use Greek
>script but was forced to transliterate the few Hebrew words I used.

This is hardly the case in more recent work, probably very little of which 
has 
had a chance to take advantage of Unicode. If you had to transliterate, 
presumably you did not have a Hebrew font. When I wrote my thesis in seminary 
a few years ago, I did not have the use of Unicode, but I had little trouble 
producing a good-quality Hebrew script. While there have been clear cases of 
publishers avoiding script, probably in at least some cases to save money, 
Unicode is hardly the only solution.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics