Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Robin Cover <robin AT oasis-open.org>]

I've lost track of how the electronic versions of the Hebrew
Bible are coded, but the official addition of (some of) the following
characters to Unicode should improve things.  Please forward this to any
appropriate lists where the significance of the announcement needs
to be assessed.

Unicode version 4.1.0 was announced on March 31, 2005 [1].  Here's
an excerpt from the section "Additions for Biblical Hebrew" [2]

======================================================================

Additions for Biblical Hebrew

Five new Hebrew characters have been added in Unicode 4.1 for special 
usage in Biblical Hebrew text:

    U+05A2 HEBREW ACCENT ATNAH HAFUKH
    U+05BA HEBREW POINT HOLAM HASER FOR VAV
    U+05C5 HEBREW MARK LOWER DOT
    U+05C6 HEBREW PUNCTUATION NUN HAFUKHA
    U+05C7 HEBREW POINT QAMATS QATAN

In some older versions of Biblical text, a distinction is made between the 
accents U+05A2 HEBREW ACCENT ATNAH HAFUKH and U+05AA HEBREW ACCENT YERAH 
BEN YOMO. Many editions from the last few centuries do not retain this 
distinction, using only yerah ben yomo, but some users in recent decades 
have begun to re-introduce this distinction. Similarly, a number of 
publishers of Biblical or other religious texts have introduced a 
typographic distinction for the vowel point qamats corresponding to two 
different readings. The original letterform used for one reading is 
referred to as qamats or qamats gadol; the new letterform for the other 
reading is qamats qatan. It is important to note that not all users of 
Biblical Hebrew use atnah hafukh and qamats qatan. If the distinction 
between accents atnah hafukh and yerah ben yomo is not made, then only 
U+05AA HEBREW ACCENT YERAH BEN YOMO is used. If the distinction between 
vowels qamats gadol and qamats qatan is not made, then only U+05B8 HEBREW 
POINT QAMATS is used. Implementations that support Hebrew accents and 
vowel points may not necessarily support the special-usage characters 
U+05A2 HEBREW ACCENT ATNAH HAFUKH and U+05C7 HEBREW POINT QAMATS QATAN.

The vowel point holam represents the vowel phoneme /o/. The consonant 
letter vav represents the consonant phoneme /w/, but in some words is used 
to represent a vowel, /o/. When the point holam is used on vav, the 
combination usually represents the vowel /o/, but in a very small number 
of cases represents the consonant-vowel combination /wo/. A typographic 
distinction is made between these two in many versions of Biblical text. 
In most cases, in which vav + holam together represents the vowel /o/, the 
point holam is centered above the vav and referred to as holam male. In 
the less frequent cases, in which the vav represents the consonant /w/, 
some versions show the point holam positioned above left. This is referred 
to as holam haser. The character U+05BA HEBREW POINT HOLAM HASER FOR VAV 
is intended for use as holam haser only in those cases where a distinction 
is needed. When the distinction is made, the character U+05B9 HEBREW POINT 
HOLAM is used to represent the point holam male on vav. U+05BA HEBREW 
POINT HOLAM HASER FOR VAV is intended for use only on vav; results of 
combining this character with other base characters are not defined. Not 
all users distinguish between the two forms of holam, and not all 
implementations can be assumed to support U+05BA HEBREW POINT HOLAM HASER 
FOR VAV.

In the Hebrew Bible, dots are written in various places above or below the 
base letters that are distinct from the vowel points and accents. These 
are referred to by scholars as puncta extraordinaria, and there are two 
kinds. The upper punctum is the more common of the two, and has been 
encoded since Unicode 2.0 as U+05C4 HEBREW MARK UPPER DOT. The lower 
punctum is used only in one verse of the Bible, Psalm 27:13, and has been 
added in Unicode 4.1 as U+05C5 HEBREW MARK LOWER DOT. The puncta generally 
differ in appearance from dots that occur above letters used to represent 
numbers; the number dots should be represented using U+0307 COMBINING DOT 
ABOVE and U+0308 COMBINING DIAERESIS.

The nun hafukha is a special symbol that appears to have been used for 
scribal annotations, though its exact functions are uncertain. It is used 
a total of nine times in the Hebrew Bible, although not all versions 
include it, and there are variations in the exact locations in which it is 
used. There is also variation in the glyph used: it often has the 
appearance of a rotated or reversed nun, and is very often called inverted 
nun; it may also appear similar to a half tet or have some other form.

[1] Version 4.1 of the Unicode Standard Released
http://www.unicode.org/press/pr-4.1.html
March 31, 2005

[2] Significant Character Additions: Additions for Biblical Hebrew
http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode4.1.0/#SignifAdditions

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Robin Cover
XML Cover Pages
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