The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew, Volume 1

—Dr. Benjamin Outhwaite, Director of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library

The form of Biblical Hebrew that is presented in printed editions, with vocalization and accent signs, has its origin in medieval manuscripts of the Bible. The vocalization and accent signs are notation systems that were created in Tiberias in the early Islamic period by scholars known as the Tiberian Masoretes, but the oral tradition they represent has roots in antiquity. The grammatical textbooks and reference grammars of Biblical Hebrew in use today are heirs to centuries of tradition of grammatical works on Biblical Hebrew in Europe. The paradox is that this European tradition of Biblical Hebrew grammar did not have direct access to the way the Tiberian Masoretes were pronouncing Biblical Hebrew.

In the last few decades, research of manuscript sources from the medieval Middle East has made it possible to reconstruct with considerable accuracy the pronunciation of the Tiberian Masoretes, which has come to be known as the ‘Tiberian pronunciation tradition’. This book presents the current state of knowledge of the Tiberian pronunciation tradition of Biblical Hebrew and a full edition of one of the key medieval sources, Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ ‘The Guide for the Reader’, by ʾAbū al-Faraj Hārūn. It is hoped that the book will help to break the mould of current grammatical descriptions of Biblical Hebrew and form a bridge between modern traditions of grammar and the school of the Masoretes of Tiberias.

Links and QR codes in the book allow readers to listen to an oral performance of samples of the reconstructed Tiberian pronunciation by Alex Foreman. This is the first time Biblical Hebrew has been recited with the Tiberian pronunciation for a millennium.

The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew, Volume 1
Geoffrey Khan | February 2020

762 pp. | 6.14" x 9.21" (234 x 156 mm)

Semitic Languages and Cultures vol 1 | ISSN: 2632-6906 (Print); 2632-6914 (Online)

ISBN Paperback: 978-1-78374-675-0
ISBN Hardback: 978-1-78374-676-7
ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-78374-677-4
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0163

Subject codes: BIC: HRCG (Biblical studies and exegesis), CFF (Historical and comparative linguistics), CFP (Translation and interpretation); BISAC: REL006020 (RELIGION / Biblical Biography / General), LAN009010 (LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Historical & Comparative)

Geoffrey Khan is Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Cambridge. His research includes philological and linguistic studies of Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic. He has a broad interest in all periods of the Hebrew language and is editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, which was first published in 2013 (Boston: Brill). He has a specific interest in Biblical Hebrew and medieval Hebrew grammatical thought, especially that of the Karaite grammarians. He has been commissioned by Oxford University Press to prepare the Oxford Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, which will present an updating and major expansion of Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar. Geoffrey Khan’s interests in Aramaic focus for the most part on the documentation of modern spoken dialects. He has undertaken extensive fieldwork on the many endangered dialects of Neo-Aramaic, which were originally spoken in northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey and western Iran by Jews and Christians. This has resulted in the publication of a series of grammatical descriptions, transcriptions of oral texts and glossaries. His documentation work and that of his team are also available online on a website dedicated to Neo-Aramaic (nena.ames.cam.ac.uk). In the field of Arabic his main published research has been on medieval Arabic documents. This includes editions of Arabic papyri, documents from early Islamic Khurasan and documents from the Cairo Genizah. He is currently working on an edition of Arabic documents from medieval Nubia.

© 2020 Geoffrey Khan. Recorded material © 2020 Alex Foreman, CC BY.

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: