Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dora Smith" <villandra AT austin.rr.com>]

Peter, what are you talking about?   Are you saying that unicode fonts only
spell the long o sound with a vav, instead of the dot over the consonant?

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, Texas
villandra AT austin.rr.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
To: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>; "Biblical Languages"
<biblical-languages AT lists.ibiblio.org>; "Hebrew Computing list"
<hebrewcomputing AT yahoogroups.com>; <hebrew AT unicode.org>; "For issues
pertaining to ancient languages" <UNICODE AT LSV.UKY.EDU>; "Unicode List"
<unicode AT unicode.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2004 6:05 PM
Subject: [b-hebrew] Draft proposal for Unicode encoding of holam male


> I have drafted a proposal for encoding holam male (full holam) in
> Unicode. This is for cases when it needs to be distinguished from
> consonantal vav with holam, especially with the biblical text. The draft
> is at
> http://qaya.org/academic/hebrew/Holam%20Male.html. (This will be
> converted to PDF for the final proposal.)
>
> Your comments are welcome. They should be directed either to me
> personally (peterkirk AT qaya.org) or to the Unicode Hebrew list,
> hebrew AT unicode.org; I don't want parallel discussions on several lists.
> My conclusion remains tentative, so you are welcome to try to change my
> mind. If anyone would like to join me as a joint proposer, please let me
> know.
>
> I hope to submit this proposal to the Unicode Technical Committee in
> time for their June 2004 meeting, for it to be considered alongside some
> other proposals to improve Unicode Hebrew, including
> http://www.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2692.pdf and
> http://www.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2714.pdf. I intend also to draft
> proposals for distinguishing medial and right meteg from the regular
> left meteg, and for clarifying the encoding of the accents zarqa/tsinor
> and tsinorit.
>
> (Apologies to anyone who receives multiple copies of this. I am sending
> blind copies to some individuals and private lists.)
>
> Here is my summary of my current draft proposal:
>
> > The Hebrew point HOLAM combines in two different ways with the Hebrew
> > letter VAV. When HOLAM appears above the top right of VAV, the
> > combination is known as holam male and is pronounced as a vowel. In
> > modern typography holam male is not always distinguished from
> > consonantal VAV followed by the vowel HOLAM, written with HOLAM above
> > the top left of VAV, but the distinction is clear and significant in
> > some texts, especially older texts. Holam male is very common in
> > pointed Hebrew texts; consonantal VAV with HOLAM is less common but
> > not extremely rare.
> >
>
> > Unicode does not currently specify how to distinguish between these
> > two sequences. Several different ways have been used in existing
> > texts, or recommended for use with Unicode Hebrew fonts. To avoid
> > proliferation of ad hoc solutions, it is proposed here that the UTC
> > specify an encoding for holam male.
> >
>
> > Four possible solutions are outlined below. The (tentatively)
> > preferred solution is to encode holam male, when distinguished from
> > consonantal VAV with HOLAM, as the sequence <VAV, ZWJ, HOLAM>.
> >
>
> --
> Peter Kirk
> peter AT qaya.org (personal)
> peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
> http://www.qaya.org/
>
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