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This volume brings together papers relating to the pronunciation of Semitic languages and the representation of their pronunciation in written form. The papers focus on sources representative of a period that stretches from late antiquity until the Middle Ages. A large proportion of them concern reading traditions of Biblical Hebrew, especially the vocalisation notation systems used to represent them. Also discussed are orthography and the written representation of prosody.
Beyond Biblical Hebrew, there are studies concerning Punic, Biblical Aramaic, Syriac, and Arabic, as well as post-biblical traditions of Hebrew such as piyyuṭ and medieval Hebrew poetry. There were many parallels and interactions between these various language traditions and the volume demonstrates that important insights can be gained from such a wide range of perspectives across different historical periods.
Studies in Semitic Vocalisation and Reading Traditions
Aaron Hornkohl and Geoffrey Khan (eds) | June 2020
708 pp. | 4 b&w (pbk)/colour (hb) Illustrations | 6.14" x 9.21" (234 x 156 mm)
José Martínez Delgado - The Prosodic Models of Andalusi Hebrew Metrics Download José Martínez Delgado
Michael Rand - Marginalia to the Qillirian Rhyme System Download Michael Rand
Index
Robert Crellin (PhD, University of Cambridge, 2012) is a postdoctoral researcher on the project Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS) in the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge, where the focus of his research is West Semitic writing systems. He has also worked on the syntax and semantics of the verb systems in Ancient Greek and Latin, as well as the morphology of Semitic personal names in Greek.
Lucia Tamponi is a PhD student in the Department of Philology, Literature, and Linguistics at the University of Pisa. Her main research interests include the diffusion of the Latin language in Sardinia, especially in the light of its Romance evolution, with special focus on the linguistic analysis of graphemic alternations in the Latin inscriptions from the island. She has previously worked on the digitisation and analysis of Latin inscriptions from Rome and Italy included in the CLaSSES (http://classes-latin-linguistics.fileli.unipi.it)epigraphic corpus.
Peter Myers (PhD, University of Cambridge, 2019) is lecturer in Hebrew and Old Testament at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology. He completed his PhD in Hebrew phonology and Greek transcriptions under the supervision of Prof. Geoffrey Khan. He is an ordained Anglican minister and a member of SIL.
Benjamin Kantor (PhD, University of Texas, 2017) is a postdoctoral researcher in Biblical Hebrew philology at the University of Cambridge. His PhD is in Hebrew Bible, with a dissertation on ‘The Second Column (Secunda) of Origen's Hexapla in Light of Greek Pronunciation’. This was completed after receiving his BA in Classical Studies with an emphasis in Greek from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2012. He specializes in the historical phonology of Hebrew and Greek in Late Antiquity.
Dorota Molin is a PhD student (2018–2021) in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge, working on North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic. She obtained her MPhil degree in the same department, where her thesis concentrated on Biblical Hebrew quotations in the Aramaic incantation bowls in the context of Biblical Hebrew pronunciation traditions. She is interested in comparative dialectology and its contribution to understanding diachrony (e.g., grammaticalisation). She has also published on contact between Modern Hebrew and Negev Arabic and worked as a research assistant on a forthcoming Diplomatic Edition of Mishna-Codex Kaufmann (A50). She holds a BA degree in Hebrew and Arabic (Cambridge).
Benjamin D. Suchard (PhD, Leiden University, 2016) is the author of The Development of the Biblical Hebrew Vowels (Brill, 2019), an adaptation of his doctoral dissertation in Linguistics. He currently holds a Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO) senior postdoctoral fellowship at KU Leuven (2019–2020, 2022–2024) for a project on the interacting languages of the Biblical Aramaic consonantal text and reading tradition and a Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) Veni postdoctoral fellowship at Leiden University (2019–2022) for a project on the linguistic status of Nabataean Aramaic.
Nick Posegay is a PhD student in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge,where he studies under Prof. Geoffrey Khan. His research examines the intellectual history of the medieval Middle East, focusing on contacts between the Arabic, Syriac, and Hebrew linguistic traditions.
Aaron D. Hornkohl (PhD, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2012) is the author of Linguistic Periodization and the Language of Jeremiah (Brill, 2013), a translated adaptation of his doctoral dissertation. He holds the positions of Hebrew Language Teaching Officer and Senior Research Associate in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, where he teaches modern and ancient Hebrew. His research is philological/linguistic in nature, focusing on ancient Hebrew, and encompassing diachrony and linguistic periodisation; syntax, pragmatics, and the verbal system; the Tiberian written and reading traditions and non-Tiberian Hebrew traditions; textual criticism and literary formation; and historical and contemporary exegesis.
Joseph Habib is entering his third year of PhD research at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Prof. Geoffrey Khan and co-supervision of Prof. Tamar Zewi (University of Haifa). The topic of his research is ‘Accents, Vocalisation, and qere/ketiv in the Bible Translations and Commentaries of Saadya Gaon and the Early Medieval Karaites’. This work is made possible thanks to a generous contribution from the Valler Doctoral Fellowship granted by the University of Haifa’s Department of Biblical Studies and Jewish History.
Vincent DeCaen (PhD, University of Toronto,1995) has a doctorate in Near Eastern Studies. His dissertation, ‘On the Placement and Interpretation of the Verb in Standard Biblical Hebrew Prose’, was supervised by E. J. Revell. His research interests are the syntax and semantics of early Biblical Hebrew, with a focus on the finite verb, and the syntax-phonology interface, comprising the Tiberian Masoretic apparatus, the poetic accent system, and the related problem of poetic meter. His publications include book chapters as well as articles in the Journal of Semitic Studies, the Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages, and Vetus Testamentum.
B. Elan Dresher (PhD, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1978) is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Toronto. He has published on phonological theory, learnability, historical linguistics, West Germanic and Biblical Hebrew phonology and prosody, and the history of phonology. His books include Old English and the Theory of Phonology (Garland, 1985) and The Contrastive Hierarchy in Phonology (Cambridge University Press, 2009). His research on Biblical Hebrew has focused on the prosodic and syntactic bases of the Tiberian system of accents, the stress system of Biblical Hebrew, and issues in the dating of Biblical Hebrew.
Kim Phillips (PhD, University of Cambridge, 2016) is a research associate in the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit in Cambridge’s University Library. His doctorate examined Abraham ibn Ezra’s commentary on the book of Isaiah—particularly Ibn Ezra’s controversial interpretation of chapters 40–66. His research interests include mediaeval Jewish biblical interpretation, Aramaic Bible translations, and all facets of Masoretic Studies. He teaches Hebrew and Hebrew Bible in Cambridge’s Faculty of Divinity.
Ben Outhwaite FRAS FSA (PhD, University of Cambridge, 2000) has been head of Cambridge University Library’s Genizah Research Unit since 2006, with responsibility for the study of the ca. two-hundred thousand manuscripts of the Cairo Genizah held there. His MA and PhD theses dealt with Medieval Hebrew linguistics and he has published on codicology, biblical manuscripts, and the history of Hebrew.
Estara Arrant received a MPhil in Islamic Studies and History from the University of Oxford in 2016. She is currently a PhD finalist in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge. She is a linguist of Semitic languages and a data scientist. Her research specialties include language contact in all Semitic languages, but especially between Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic; Hebrew and Arabic codicology and palaeography; the linguistic development and transmission of Semitic scriptural traditions; digital humanities; and applied data science for manuscript and language studies.
Geoffrey Khan (PhD, SOAS, 1984) is Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Cambridge. His research publications focus on three main fields: Biblical Hebrew language (especially medieval traditions), Neo-Aramaic dialectology, and medieval Arabic documents.He is the general editor of The Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics and is the senior editor of Journal of Semitic Studies. His most recent book is The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew, 2 vols ,Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures 1 (University of Cambridge & Open Book Publishers, 2020).
Élodie Attia (PhD, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris,2008), is a CNRS Researcher at the Centre Paul-Albert Février TDMAM (UMR 7297) at Aix-Marseille University. Her field is the history of the medieval Jewish world and its culture, with particular focus on the study of Hebrew manuscript sources and codicology. She has recently edited The Masorah of Elijah ha-Naqdan (De Gruyter, 2015) and is Principal Investigator in the Manuscripta Bibliae Hebraicae Project, funded by the French ANR (2016–2020), which is dedicated to the material, cultural, and social meanings of early biblical manuscripts produced in Ashkenaz before 1300.
José Martínez Delgado (PhD, Complutense University of Madrid, 2001) is Associate Professor at the University of Granada and works on the Sciences of the Biblical Hebrew Language in al-Andalus (tenth–twelfth centuries). He has edited and translated Kitāb al-Mustalḥaq by Ibn Janāḥof Cordoba(Brill, 2020), Un manual judeo-árabe de métrica hebrea andalusí (UCO Press CNERU-CSIC, 2017), and Kitāb al-Taysīr by Shelomo b. Ṣaʿīr (Universidad de Granada, 2010).
Michael Rand (PhD, New York University, 2003) is Lecturer in Hebrew and Aramaic at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies of the University of Cambridge. He specializes in Medieval Hebrew poetry, in particular piyyuṭ and maqāma. His most recent monograph is The Evolution of Al-Ḥarizi’s Taḥkemoni (Brill, 2018).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information:
Aaron Hornkohl and Geoffrey Khan (eds), Studies in Semitic Vocalisation and Reading Traditions. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2020, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0207
1. Vowel Quantity and Quality in Neo-Punic and Latin Inscriptions from Africa and Sardinia
Robert Crellin and Lucia Tamponi
Robert Crellin and Lucia Tamponi elucidate the vowel quality and quantity of Neo-Punic and Latin from North Africa and Sardinia. An important innovation presented in the article is the investigation not only of the representation of vowels in Neo-Punic by means of matres lectionis, but also of zero-representation and its relation to representation by matres lectionis. This sheds light on the degree of sensitivity of writers of Neo-Punic inscriptions to vowel length in Latin. The examination of the representation of vowel length and vowel quality further reveals that in both North Africa and Sardinia the distinction between /i, eː/ and /u, oː/ was retained despite the merger of these phonemes in Common Romance. The authors convincingly suggest that this is due to ties between North Africa and Sardinia. The article thus adds to our understanding of the linguistic development of both Romance and Punic in North Africa and Sardinia and to the relations between those two communities.
2. The Development of the Hebrew wayyiqṭol Verbal Form (‘Waw Consecutive’) in Light of Greek and Latin Transcriptions of Hebrew
Benjamin Kantor
Benjamin Kantor investigates the attestations of the wayyiqṭol form in ancient Greek and Latin transcriptions of Biblical Hebrew and compares those attestations with medieval Jewish traditions of Biblical Hebrew (Tiberian, Babylonian) and with the Samaritan tradition. It is shown that the Greek and Latin transcriptions help us understand the development of the later Jewish and Samaritan traditions. By the time of Jerome’s transcriptions (fourth/fifth century CE), the gemination following the initial wa- is generalised, whereas earlier, in Origen’s Secunda (circa first–third centuries CE), it is not fully developed. In the Samaritan tradition there is no trace of this kind of gemination. The article reaches the important conclusion that gemination in wayyiqṭol is a development of the Second Temple Jewish traditions, but not the Samaritan tradition.
3. The Representation of Gutturals by Vowels in the LXX of 2 Esdras
Peter Myers
Peter Myers seeks to shed light on the guttural consonants of Biblical Hebrew underlying transcriptions into Greek in 2 Esdras, the Greek translation of Ezra-Nehemiah in the Septuagint. The article goes about this by examining the vowels that are used where the underlying Hebrew pronunciation would be expected to have a guttural. Myers finds a degree of systematicity in the use of specific Greek vowels for specific Hebrew guttural consonants. The examination also corroborates earlier hypotheses regarding the loss of the velar fricatives /*ḫ/ and /*ġ/ in Hebrew by the time of the writing of Septuagint Ezra-Nehemiah.
4. Biblical Quotations in the Aramaic Incantation Bowls and Their Contribution to the Study of the Babylonian Reading Tradition Dorota Molin
Dorota Molin’s article highlights the importance of the incantation bowls in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic from the sixth–seventh centuries CE for the study of the pre-Masoretic Babylonian reading tradition of Biblical Hebrew. Biblical quotations within these bowls constitute the only direct documentation of Biblical Hebrew from Babylonia at that time. The phonetic spelling of the quotations provides much information about their pronunciation. In a series of case studies Molin shows that the pronunciation of the quotations corresponds closely to the medieval Babylonian reading tradition. She also demonstrates that they reflect interference from the Aramaic vernacular, manifested especially in weakening of the guttural consonants, and that the writers drew from an oral tradition of the Hebrew Bible.
5. Phonological Adaptation and the Biblical Aramaic and Biblical Hebrew Reflexes of *i and *u
Benjamin D. Suchard
Benjamin Suchard treats the phenomenon of irregular reflexes of the vowels *i and *u in Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic from a novel perspective of ‘phonological adaptation’, whereby speakers of one language adapted borrowed forms to their own phonology. This process is known to be irregular. The author makes an innovative suggestion that in Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic, respectively, the irregular reflexes of the vowels *i and *u are due to the phonological adaptation of pre-Tiberian Hebrew to Aramaic phonology and of Biblical Hebrew to Palestinian Greek phonology. Such a process sheds light on general developments in the reading traditions and linguistic realities of Palestine of late antiquity.
6. Connecting the Dots: The Shared Phonological Tradition in Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew Vocalisation
Nick Posegay
Nick Posegay presents new data in his article on links between the various medieval vocalisation traditions of Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic. These include the identification of overlaps in the Aramaic terminology used by Jewish Masoretes and Christian Syriac grammarians and in the phonological theories that underlie them. Posegay thus provides new evidence that the systems did not develop in isolation, but where the result of intellectual exchanges between the various religious communities.
7. Discord between the Tiberian Written and Reading Traditions: Two Case Studies
Aaron D. Hornkohl
Aaron Hornkohl examines two features in the Tiberian reading tradition of Biblical Hebrew, namely the qal construct infinitive and the 3ms possessive suffix that is attached to plural nouns and some prepositions. The article argues that although the vocalisation in both cases is secondary relative to what is represented by the consonantal text, it is not artificial and post-biblical, but rather a relatively ancient product of the real language situation of an earlier period, namely, the Second Temple Period, if not earlier. The view that the vocalisation has such historical depth and is the result of natural linguistic development is often dismissed by biblical scholars. By examining the distribution of forms within the Tiberian Masoretic version of the Hebrew Bible and in extra-biblical sources, especially the Dead Sea Scrolls and First Temple period epigraphy, Hornkohl convincingly demonstrates that the incongruity between the vocalisation and the consonantal text is earlier than Rabbinic Hebrew (second–third centuries CE).
8. Qere and Ketiv in the Exegesis of the Karaites and Saadya Gaon
Joseph Habib
Joseph Habib examines the attitudes of medieval Karaite exegetes and Saadya Gaon with regard to the qere and ketiv in the Masoretic Hebrew Bible on the basis of their commentaries and Arabic translations. Habib presents clear evidence that both Saadya and various Karaite exegetes relied on qere as well as ketiv for their exegesis. He shows that the main motivation to use one of the other as the basis of interpretation is harmonization with parallel verses.
9. Pausal Forms and Prosodic Structure in Tiberian Hebrew
Vincent DeCaen and B. Elan Dresher
Vincent DeCaen and Elan Dresher investigate the reasons that pausal forms in Tiberian Hebrew, which are expected to occur at the end of ‘intonational phrases’, at times appear where Tiberian accents are conjunctive rather than disjunctive. They challenge an earlier opinion that such mismatches represent different traditions or stages of interpreting the biblical text, maintaining instead that these mismatches are due to limitations inherent in the Tiberian system of accents.
10. Samuel ben Jacob’s Treatment of Exceptional Vocalic Shewas
Kim Phillips
Kim Phillips focuses on shewa signs that are pronounced as vocalic according to the Masoretic treatises in contexts where they would normally be expected to be silent. He examines how such shewas are represented by the scribe Samuel ben Jacob, who produced the Leningrad Codex and various other codices. The examination reveals that the scribe strove for graphic economy and was not completely consistent in the strategies that he adopted to represent the vocalic nature of the shewa in these contexts across the various manuscripts.
11. The Tiberian Tradition in Common Bibles from the Cairo Genizah
Benjamin Outhwaite
Benjamin Outhwaite examines how deviations from the standard Tiberian tradition found in ‘Common Bibles’ from the Cairo Genizah reveal the way Biblical Hebrew was pronounced by those who produced the manuscripts. Common Bibles have to date been studied far less than other biblical manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah. The study examines five fragments. It illustrates numerous deviations in notation from the standard conventions of Tiberian vocalisation and also many features that reflect a pronunciation different from that of the standard Tiberian tradition.
12. An Exploratory Typology of Near-Model and Non-Standard Tiberian Torah Manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah
Estara Arrant
Estara Arrant examines categories of Torah codices from the Cairo Genizah that have not been afforded sufficient scholarly attention, namely ‘near-model’ codices, a term coined by Arrant. The study analyses almost three hundred fragments by means of a methodology based on statistical analysis. The study shows how statistical methods can be employed to reveal sub-types of Torah fragments that share linguistic and codicological features.
13. Some Features for the Imperfect Oral Performance of the Tiberian Reading Tradition of Biblical Hebrew in the Middle Ages
Geoffrey Khan
Geoffrey Khan looks at imperfect performances of the prestigious Tiberian pronunciation tradition that are reflected in medieval Bible manuscripts. He proposes explanatory models for the development of such imperfect performances. Three factors are identified: interference of a less prestigious substrate, which he identifies as the Hebrew component of Jewish vernacular Arabic; hypercorrections; and varying degrees of acquisition of the Tiberian tradition. Khan describes these various phenomena and concludes that the imperfect performances must be datable to a period when the Tiberian pronunciation tradition was still alive and was familiar, though not perfectly, to the scribes.
14. On Some Variants in Ashkenazic Biblical Manuscripts from the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
Élodie Attia
Élodie Attia examines the question of the relationship between early Ashkenazic Bible manuscripts and the Tiberian tradition as recorded in the earliest Tiberian manuscripts, especially the Leningrad Codex and the Damascus Pentateuch. The main Ashkenazic manuscript chosen for the study is Vat. Ebr. 14. The study challenges an earlier claim by Pérez Castro that early Ashkenazic Bible manuscripts were far removed from the Tiberian tradition in comparison with Sephardic manuscripts. Attia shows that by enlarging the corpus of Tiberian manuscripts and by including Ashkenazic manuscripts earlier than those previously studied, the relations between the two corpora appear more complex than has hitherto been believed.
15. The Prosodic Models of Andalusi Hebrew Metrics
José Martínez Delgado
José Martínez Delgado presents a detailed overview of the different models for explaining the metric system of Andalusi Hebrew poetry. The author focuses on four models, which are found in various historical documents and scholarly studies.
16. Marginalia to the Qillirian Rhyme System
Michael Rand
Michael Rand draws attention to some features in the so-called ‘Qillirian’ rhyme scheme, named after the great poet Eleazar be-Rabbi Qillir, who invented and introduced it into Hebrew piyyuṭ. In piyyuṭim with this type of rhyme, morphological elements, namely, two root consonants, form the basis of rhymes. Rand elucidates different ways in which this feature is implemented and how it may encompass both a linguistic reality and a poetic tool. Some rhymes reflect historical phonetic changes that took place in the pronunciation of Hebrew; others constitute poetic techniques. It is shown that in some cases /a/ rhymes with /e/, which is likely to reflect a phonetic reality rooted in the speech of the poets.