References for: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[Tex Texin]

Hi, I was looking for a good book on Hebrew that describes the placement of
points and such and noticed the reference to Harrison. The associated text
below is along the lines of what I am looking for. However, the reviews at
Amazon are not very good for this title.

I would be interested in suggestions for a good book along these lines.
Reply to me privately, if there is interest I will repost the suggestions in a
single message back to the list.
tex

Chris Jacobs wrote:
"When holem precedes א,  the point is placed on the
upper right of the letter, as with יֹאמַר (yō’mǎr).
When it follows the א, the point is placed on the
upper left, as in אֹבֵד (’ōbhēdh). When holem precedes
שׁ, the points coincide, as with מֹשֶׁל (mōšěl).
When holem follows שׂ, the points again coincide as
with שֹׂטֵן (sōṭēn). The letter שֹׁ will be "šō" to
commence a syllabe, e.g., שֹׁמַע (šōmǎ‘), and "ōs" in
other places."

[ R.K. Harrison, Teach Yourself Biblical Hebrew ]

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Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[Julian Gilbey]

On Thu, Mar 06, 2003 at 02:25:19PM -0500, Dean Snyder wrote:
> Ben Yehuda is a "modern" Hebrew dictionary, and, as I noted in my
> original email, I have little experience in modern, Israeli Hebrew -
> maybe the orthography is different there, I just don't know. Which is why
> I was limiting my remarks to classical Hebrew.
> 
> Maybe we have some Israeli lurkers out here who can help us with this?

Orthography essentially the same, but people are lazy and don't always
put all the dots (vowel markings) in "accurately" or at all.  Most
people reading the dictionary would be OK with the word even with two
identical marks on the Shin/Sin letter: there's only one possible way
to read the word anyhow.

   Julian

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Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[John Hudson]

Thanks for taking the time to prepare a detailed response, John (Jenkins). 
You know I'm only hammering in the hope that it will have some effect, 
perhaps with those people 'who actually call the shots'.

It is frustrating as a font developer to now be able to do some incredibly 
clever things relatively easily for complex scripts on Windows, and still 
be faced with mort, morx and state tables on the Mac side, especially when 
we're trying to support scholars and others with advanced needs. To date, 
Biblical Hebrew is the most difficult piece of OT development I've had to 
do -- getting the nikud and teamin positioning to interract properly is 
very fiddly, especially since I need to handle some non-standard elements 
like right-positioned meteg in the Biblia Hebraici Stuttgartensia text --, 
and I'm pretty sure that I would have to hire a telephone exchange 
programmer (or Dave Opstad) to achieve the same results in AAT. I think 
I've always been very fair in pointing out the processing advantages of 
GX/AAT -- and the advantage of this model for scripts not yet supported in 
external shaping engines like Uniscribe --, even as I curse the development 
obstacles and question the need for so complex a technology for 95% of the 
world's text and typography needs. But I end up feeling sorry for people 
who have invested in Macs when they're left on the sidelines as Microsoft 
and even Adobe stream past them on the complex script front, with more and 
better application and font support. I feel particularly for scholarly 
users, many of whom became Mac users as a result of Apple's effective 
marketing in the educational field, and who now have what I have to 
consider a second class platform for the kind of work that they need to do 
(and increasingly likely to become a third class platform as FreeType and 
ICU improve OT support).

John Hudson

Tiro Typeworks  www.tiro.com
Vancouver, BC   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
It is necessary that by all means and cunning,
the cursed owners of books should be persuaded
to make them available to us, either by argument
or by force.  - Michael Apostolis, 1467

Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[John H. Jenkins]

On Thursday, March 6, 2003, at 01:42 PM, John Hudson wrote:

The problem you have is that Apple, despite being involved with 
Unicode from the earliest days, have only recently shipped an OS with 
native Unicode text processing available;
This isn't quite true.  Unicode support has been available on Macs 
since Mac OS 8.5, and, via GX, even earlier than that.  For various 
reasons (many of them admittedly legitimate) application developers 
haven't been taking advantage of that support, but it has been there.

this text processing is only available to 'Cocoa' apps, i.e. apps 
writtenly natively for OS X, rather than 'Carbonised' i.e. updated 
from previous versions;
This is also slightly off the mark.  Carbonized applications can do 
Unicode through MLTE and ATSUI, and there are some who do.

there are still very few native Cocoa apps, and even the MS Office 
suite under Apple has very poor Unicode support compared to the same 
apps under Windows;
This is a Microsoft issue, not an Apple one.

Apple have been saying for years that they would support OpenType 
Layout features in some way, but have yet to do anything;
We've been deliberately vague on this issue, because OTL support 
(directly or indirectly) on the Mac is not high on the to-do list of 
the people who actually call the shots.  In fairness, both MS and Adobe 
have had similar problems, where OTL support has been provided 
piecemeal because of how it fits in with their long-term strategies.

In the meantime, the other issue for adding OTL support to the Mac is 
largely a resource one.  We're a distant second in the OS desktop race. 
 We don't have the resources that Adobe and MS have (and, if you ask 
people over there, they will also express frustration at how much 
they're expected to do with their limited resources).  Under the 
circumstances, since we would have to rewrite large chunks of our 
layout engine in order to use OTL directly, it's no wonder that we 
haven't done it.  There hasn't been a significant call for it among the 
bulk of our customers, and what engineers we have are set to other 
tasks.

It's the same reason why Unicode support has been slow to come for some 
higher-end applications.  Rewriting the guts of something that's 
already in use is costly and difficult, harder (in many cases) than 
writing it for the first time.  It's no coincidence that InDesign had 
CoolType support from the beginning, whereas Illustrator had to wait 
for it to show up.

I won't deny that Apple's had more than its share of ball-fumbling, and 
Unicode is a big part of that; but this is largely a side effect of our 
stumbling through most of the 90's without having a "next generation 
OS" strategy that we would actually follow through on.

Apple continue to rely on their own AAT font format, despite the fact 
that almost no font developers are producing fonts for that format (GX 
by any other name smelling as sweet). So while I sympathise with your 
concern that the fonts might appear to be 'Windows-only', I think the 
proper target for your frustration is Apple, who have been 
systematically fumbling the ball for several years now.

The AAT font format has been around for the better part of a decade, 
and free tools (more on which below) to develop AAT fonts has been 
around for pretty much that whole time.  I think it would be fairer to 
say that it didn't make economic sense for font developers to build AAT 
features into their fonts.  The number of languages which *require* 
complex typography is a minority of all languages (at least, in terms 
of economic clout), and with few apps (until recently) supporting it, 
there was little incentive.

Also, are you saying that the requisite font layout features are only
doable via OpenType?
In the initial version of the font, yes. It is an OpenType font, using 
OpenType glyph substitution and positioning technology to correctly 
render Biblical Hebrew from Unicode encoded text strings. That said, 
if funding is available, it would be possible to make a version of the 
typeface in the AAT format, using that technology to produce the same 
shaping (I've some experience with AAT, but I'm not sure just how 
difficult it might be to achieve some of the cleverer contextual stuff 
I have in the SBL Hebrew OT font; AAT is a very difficult format to 
develop for, and Apple's tools leave a *lot* to be desired).
Our newer tools are substantially improved, but you have hit one of the 
problematic nails on the head here.  The core of the AAT layout 
technology is the 'mort' table, which earned its name by being deadly 
difficult to make.  The newer 'morx' table we use now isn't much 
better.  The 'mort' table was designed in the early 1990's, when memory 
was much more at a premium than it is now and when processors were 
slower.  The 'mort' is compact, fast, and powerful, but at a price.  
They're not terribly easy to make.  In particular, most of the 
typographers I know are more artistic than geeky and tend to s

Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[John Hudson]

At 12:08 PM 3/6/2003, Dean Snyder wrote:

Has this Windows-only model of distribution been widely aired amongst the
membership of the Society of Biblical Literature? I know that many SBL
scholars use Macintosh computers, and for publishers to accept only
Windows-generated documents seems an onerous restriction, particularly in
such a large and internationally diverse organization as SBL.
The fonts have a Unicode cmap, so they can be used in any environment that 
supports Unicode text input and editing. The font format is a TrueType 
flavoured OpenType font, which is the most widely supported font file and 
outline format (probably ever), and has native system support in all 
flavours of Windows, on Mac OS X, and on Linux and other flavours of UNIX 
via FreeType.

In order to correctly *display* the text strings, the lookup features in 
the font need to be applied by a layout engine. This is done automatically 
in applications on Windows that make use of standard system text processing 
APIs. This is also done in some cross-platform, third party applications, 
such as the Middle East version of Adobe InDesign, that use internal text 
processing engines instead of system calls. I am not certain what level of 
Hebrew layout support is currently available to Linux etc. users, but I do 
know that both FreeType and ICU seek to achieve the same results as 
Uniscribe using the same fonts.

The problem you have is that Apple, despite being involved with Unicode 
from the earliest days, have only recently shipped an OS with native 
Unicode text processing available; this text processing is only available 
to 'Cocoa' apps, i.e. apps writtenly natively for OS X, rather than 
'Carbonised' i.e. updated from previous versions; there are still very few 
native Cocoa apps, and even the MS Office suite under Apple has very poor 
Unicode support compared to the same apps under Windows; Apple have been 
saying for years that they would support OpenType Layout features in some 
way, but have yet to do anything; Apple continue to rely on their own AAT 
font format, despite the fact that almost no font developers are producing 
fonts for that format (GX by any other name smelling as sweet). So while I 
sympathise with your concern that the fonts might appear to be 
'Windows-only', I think the proper target for your frustration is Apple, 
who have been systematically fumbling the ball for several years now.

Also, are you saying that the requisite font layout features are only
doable via OpenType?
In the initial version of the font, yes. It is an OpenType font, using 
OpenType glyph substitution and positioning technology to correctly render 
Biblical Hebrew from Unicode encoded text strings. That said, if funding is 
available, it would be possible to make a version of the typeface in the 
AAT format, using that technology to produce the same shaping (I've some 
experience with AAT, but I'm not sure just how difficult it might be to 
achieve some of the cleverer contextual stuff I have in the SBL Hebrew OT 
font; AAT is a very difficult format to develop for, and Apple's tools 
leave a *lot* to be desired). We're already looking at making a custom 
PostScript version of the font to be used with some older, non-Unicode 
typesetting software.

The best long-term solution is for Apple to follow through on their promise 
to support OpenType Layout features, so that we have a genuinely cross 
platform font solution.

John Hudson

Tiro Typeworks  www.tiro.com
Vancouver, BC   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
It is necessary that by all means and cunning,
the cursed owners of books should be persuaded
to make them available to us, either by argument
or by force.  - Michael Apostolis, 1467

Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[Dean Snyder]

John Hudson wrote at 11:23 AM on Thursday, March 6, 2003:

>At 09:00 AM 3/6/2003, Dean Snyder wrote:
>
>> From :
>>
>>"SBL is pioneering the design of three unicode fonts for Hebrew, Greek,
>>and Latin, in conjunction  with a professional type foundry,
>>Tiro... SBL and the font foundation will lobby Microsoft to distribute
>>the font with its future releases of Windows."
>>
>>Will you similarly lobby Apple?
>
>You would have to ask the guys at SBL. My guess is that they would be happy 
>to see the fonts as widely distributed as possible, so that they are 
>available for scholars to standardise on text processing and publishing 
>workflows. The only potential problem I see is that the fonts are OpenType 
>and rely on system resources (e.g. MS's Unicode Script Processor, 
>Uniscribe) to apply the layout features in the font to text. Apple have not 
>adopted OpenType Layout support, although they support the file and outline 
>formats, so the fonts are going to be of limited use to Mac users for now 
>(although they should work well in some Mac apps with internal text 
>engines, e.g. the Middle East version of Adobe InDesign). It would be 
>*possible* to make an AAT (Apple Advanced Typography) version of the fonts, 
>but I don't think this is at the top of anyone's priorities at the moment, 
>and would require additional funding.
>
>John Hudson
>
>Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com
>Vancouver, BC  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Has this Windows-only model of distribution been widely aired amongst the
membership of the Society of Biblical Literature? I know that many SBL
scholars use Macintosh computers, and for publishers to accept only
Windows-generated documents seems an onerous restriction, particularly in
such a large and internationally diverse organization as SBL.

Also, are you saying that the requisite font layout features are only
doable via OpenType?


Respectfully,

Dean A. Snyder
Scholarly Technology Specialist
Center For Scholarly Resources, Sheridan Libraries
Garrett Room, MSE Library, 3400 N. Charles St.
The Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218

office: 410 516-6850 mobile: 410 245-7168 fax: 410-516-6229
Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project: www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi
Manager, Initiative for Cuneiform Encoding: www.jhu.edu/ice

Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[Dean Snyder]

Chris Jacobs wrote at 6:02 PM on Thursday, March 6, 2003:

>BoSeM, is written with a SIN with two dots in
>Ben Yehuda's Pocket English-Hebrew Hebrew-English dictionary.
>It translates as perfume, spice there.
>I see the spelling in Ben Tehuda's is inconsistent.
>In the English-Hebrew section under perfume the dot is above the BETH, as
>you describe it.
>But under spice there is again the SIN with two dots, like in the Hebrew-
>English section.
...
>In that same pocket dictionary MoSHeL, rule; resemblance, has no dot over
>the MEM. It has one dot over the SHIN.

Ben Yehuda is a "modern" Hebrew dictionary, and, as I noted in my
original email, I have little experience in modern, Israeli Hebrew -
maybe the orthography is different there, I just don't know. Which is why
I was limiting my remarks to classical Hebrew.

Maybe we have some Israeli lurkers out here who can help us with this?


Respectfully,

Dean A. Snyder
Scholarly Technology Specialist
Center For Scholarly Resources, Sheridan Libraries
Garrett Room, MSE Library, 3400 N. Charles St.
The Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218

office: 410 516-6850 mobile: 410 245-7168 fax: 410-516-6229
Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project: www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi
Manager, Initiative for Cuneiform Encoding: www.jhu.edu/ice

Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[John Hudson]

At 09:00 AM 3/6/2003, Dean Snyder wrote:

From :

"SBL is pioneering the design of three unicode fonts for Hebrew, Greek,
and Latin, in conjunction  with a professional type foundry,
Tiro... SBL and the font foundation will lobby Microsoft to distribute
the font with its future releases of Windows."
Will you similarly lobby Apple?
You would have to ask the guys at SBL. My guess is that they would be happy 
to see the fonts as widely distributed as possible, so that they are 
available for scholars to standardise on text processing and publishing 
workflows. The only potential problem I see is that the fonts are OpenType 
and rely on system resources (e.g. MS's Unicode Script Processor, 
Uniscribe) to apply the layout features in the font to text. Apple have not 
adopted OpenType Layout support, although they support the file and outline 
formats, so the fonts are going to be of limited use to Mac users for now 
(although they should work well in some Mac apps with internal text 
engines, e.g. the Middle East version of Adobe InDesign). It would be 
*possible* to make an AAT (Apple Advanced Typography) version of the fonts, 
but I don't think this is at the top of anyone's priorities at the moment, 
and would require additional funding.

John Hudson

Tiro Typeworks  www.tiro.com
Vancouver, BC   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
It is necessary that by all means and cunning,
the cursed owners of books should be persuaded
to make them available to us, either by argument
or by force.  - Michael Apostolis, 1467

Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[Dean Snyder]

John Hudson wrote at 7:31 AM on Thursday, March 6, 2003:

>At 06:29 AM 3/6/2003, Dean Snyder wrote:
>
>>The most elegant fonts I am aware of for classical Hebrew are produced by
>>Linguist's Software, . Their HebraicaII is
>>used by Biblia Hebraica, the Oxford Hebrew Bible Project, and the Dead
>>Sea Scrolls Project.
>
>The Society of Biblical Literature has set up a Fonts Foundation to fund 
>the development of high quality OpenType fonts for Biblical scholarship. 
>The SBL Hebrew font is currently in beta testing, and will be followed by 
>Greek and Latin extensions. If anyone is interested in finding out more 
>about this project, or about becoming a partner in the Font Foundation, 
>they should contact Kent Richards or Patrick Durusau at SBL. I can provide 
>contact information if contacted off-list.
>
>John Hudson
>
>Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com


>From :

"SBL is pioneering the design of three unicode fonts for Hebrew, Greek,
and Latin, in conjunction  with a professional type foundry,
Tiro... SBL and the font foundation will lobby Microsoft to distribute
the font with its future releases of Windows." 

Will you similarly lobby Apple?


Respectfully,

Dean A. Snyder
Scholarly Technology Specialist
Center For Scholarly Resources, Sheridan Libraries
Garrett Room, MSE Library, 3400 N. Charles St.
The Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218

office: 410 516-6850 mobile: 410 245-7168 fax: 410-516-6229
Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project: www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi
Manager, Initiative for Cuneiform Encoding: www.jhu.edu/ice

Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[Chris Jacobs]

- Original Message - 
From: "Dean Snyder" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Unicode List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 3:29 PM
Subject: Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[ ... ]

> Do you have an example of SIN with two dots? I have never seen it. This
> would make for ambiguous orthography, which, of course, does occur, but
> is usually, by design, avoided. But just to pull out one example, in the
> Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, BoSeM, "balsam", is written with the
> KHOLEM over the BET not the SIN - the SIN has one dot. And this pattern
> is repeated everywhere there.

BoSeM, is written with a SIN with two dots in

Ben Yehuda's Pocket English-Hebrew Hebrew-English dictionary.
It translates as perfume, spice there.

I see the spelling in Ben Tehuda's is inconsistent.
In the English-Hebrew section under perfume the dot is above the BETH, as you describe 
it.
But under spice there is again the SIN with two dots, like in the Hebrew-English 
section.

> >"shares the same dot" cannot only happen with SIN DOT, dot to the left,
> >but also with SHIN DOT, dot to the right.
> >I was thinking of the latter.
> >As in MoSHeL. If the SHIN DOT here is a KHOLEM then clearly the KHOLEM
> >belonging  to the M is above the SH.
> 
> Again, I have never seen this. In the same edition mentioned above we
> have MoSHeL, with two dots - the KHOLEM over the MEM (not the SHIN),
> followed by the SHIN dot over the SHIN.

In that same pocket dictionary MoSHeL, rule; resemblance, has no dot over the MEM.
It has one dot over the SHIN.

[ ... ]

Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[John Hudson]

At 06:29 AM 3/6/2003, Dean Snyder wrote:

The most elegant fonts I am aware of for classical Hebrew are produced by
Linguist's Software, . Their HebraicaII is
used by Biblia Hebraica, the Oxford Hebrew Bible Project, and the Dead
Sea Scrolls Project.
The Society of Biblical Literature has set up a Fonts Foundation to fund 
the development of high quality OpenType fonts for Biblical scholarship. 
The SBL Hebrew font is currently in beta testing, and will be followed by 
Greek and Latin extensions. If anyone is interested in finding out more 
about this project, or about becoming a partner in the Font Foundation, 
they should contact Kent Richards or Patrick Durusau at SBL. I can provide 
contact information if contacted off-list.

John Hudson

Tiro Typeworks  www.tiro.com
Vancouver, BC   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
It is necessary that by all means and cunning,
the cursed owners of books should be persuaded
to make them available to us, either by argument
or by force.  - Michael Apostolis, 1467

Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[Dean Snyder]

Chris Jacobs wrote at 11:54 AM on Thursday, March 6, 2003:

>> The case of (written) Yo'MaR is not an exception. The pronunciation is
>> "yomar", the aleph not being pronounced; and therefore the KHOLEM is
>> written after the consonant which directly precedes it in pronunciation.
>
>But not above that consonant.

My point being only that the KHOLEM does not precede the consonant after
which it is pronounced.


>It explains that SHIN+KHOLEM "sho" and KHOLEM+SIN "os" are written the
>same way. A shin with two dots above it.
>However, if it is KHOLEM+SIN, "os" then it is not a syllabe, i.e. the
>KHOLEM logically belongs to the preceding syllabe.

Do you have an example of SIN with two dots? I have never seen it. This
would make for ambiguous orthography, which, of course, does occur, but
is usually, by design, avoided. But just to pull out one example, in the
Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, BoSeM, "balsam", is written with the
KHOLEM over the BET not the SIN - the SIN has one dot. And this pattern
is repeated everywhere there.


>"shares the same dot" cannot only happen with SIN DOT, dot to the left,
>but also with SHIN DOT, dot to the right.
>I was thinking of the latter.
>As in MoSHeL. If the SHIN DOT here is a KHOLEM then clearly the KHOLEM
>belonging  to the M is above the SH.

Again, I have never seen this. In the same edition mentioned above we
have MoSHeL, with two dots - the KHOLEM over the MEM (not the SHIN),
followed by the SHIN dot over the SHIN.


>It seems to be a _kerning_ problem.
>A hebrew letter with KHOLEM can have a part (the KHOLEM) which is above
>another letter.
>Are there hebrew computer fonts which do kerning?

The most elegant fonts I am aware of for classical Hebrew are produced by
Linguist's Software, . Their HebraicaII is
used by Biblia Hebraica, the Oxford Hebrew Bible Project, and the Dead
Sea Scrolls Project.


Respectfully,

Dean A. Snyder
Scholarly Technology Specialist
Center For Scholarly Resources, Sheridan Libraries
Garrett Room, MSE Library, 3400 N. Charles St.
The Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218

office: 410 516-6850 mobile: 410 245-7168 fax: 410-516-6229
Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project: www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi
Manager, Initiative for Cuneiform Encoding: www.jhu.edu/ice

Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[Chris Jacobs]

- Original Message -
From: "Dean Snyder" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Unicode List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2003 10:11 PM
Subject: Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

> The case of (written) Yo'MaR is not an exception. The pronunciation is
> "yomar", the aleph not being pronounced; and therefore the KHOLEM is
> written after the consonant which directly precedes it in pronunciation.

But not above that consonant.

> In the examples 'oBeD, MoSHeL, and SoTeN the KHOLEM, as expected, follows
> in pronunciation the letter with which it is associated.
>
> I can't make out the transcription "The letter ??? will be "so¯" to
> commence a syllabe, e.g., ?? (so¯ma'), and "o¯s" in other places."
> and I don't have Harrison's grammar at work to check the reading; but it
> sounds like an explanation of how SHIN + KHOLEM are written, which has
> already been discussed.

It explains that SHIN+KHOLEM "sho" and KHOLEM+SIN "os" are written the same way. A 
shin with two dots above it.
However, if it is KHOLEM+SIN, "os" then it is not a syllabe, i.e. the KHOLEM logically 
belongs to the preceding syllabe.

[ ... ]

> I don't have my Bagster here at work but I would suspect if you looked
> closely, the location of the KHOLEM would be as I have suggested.

Indeed. While the KHOLEM is above the he the shortest distance (which is horizontal) 
is not to the he but to the lamed.

> If not I suspect this is idiosyncratic to works printed on that press.
>
> [I did however misspeak technically when I said "after the consonant OVER
> which it is written". The KHOLEM pronounced after LAMED is indeed written
> OVER the scribal line, but is written directly AFTER the LAMED.]
>
>
> >> About the only "unusual" orthographic phenomenon I can think of related
> >> to KHOLEM is that when it occurs after SIN it "shares the same dot"
> >> with SIN.
> >
> >And if those dots were above different letters there were no reason why
> >they should share.
>
> I must be missing your point here; this seems to support what I was saying.

"shares the same dot" cannot only happen with SIN DOT, dot to the left, but also with 
SHIN DOT, dot to the right.
I was thinking of the latter.
As in MoSHeL. If the SHIN DOT here is a KHOLEM then clearly the KHOLEM belonging  to 
the M is above the SH.

It seems to be a _kerning_ problem.
A hebrew letter with KHOLEM can have a part (the KHOLEM) which is above another letter.
Are there hebrew computer fonts which do kerning?

> But I'm surprised that no one has provided the one possible
> counterexample to my statement about no vowel preceding its consonant (an
> example I completely forgot about when writing my former post) -  furtive
> pathach (as in the second a-vowel in SaMeaKH).
>
> Depending on your linguistic persuasion you might argue that the PATAKH
> here is a vowel glide, both written and pronounced, which is merely
> "extending" a non-a-vowel before guttural consonants in certain phonemic
> contexts. Or you might want to posit that it is the only example of a
> syllable in classical Hebrew beginning with a vowel - or an unwritten
> consonant.
>
> Probably more than we need to know about the originally posted problem,
> but I have a feeling that readers of this list enjoy, like I do,
> discussion of these orthographic quirks of the world's writing systems.
>
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Dean A. Snyder
> Scholarly Technology Specialist
> Center For Scholarly Resources, Sheridan Libraries
> Garrett Room, MSE Library, 3400 N. Charles St.
> The Johns Hopkins University
> Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218
>
> office: 410 516-6850 mobile: 410 245-7168 fax: 410-516-6229
> Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project: www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi
> Manager, Initiative for Cuneiform Encoding: www.jhu.edu/ice
>
>
>

Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[Dean Snyder]

Chris Jacobs wrote at 7:27 PM on Wednesday, March 5, 2003:

>> Chris Jacobs wrote at 12:54 AM on Wednesday, March 5, 2003:
>>
>> >But why do you call the kholam a "high left dot"?
>> >
>> >As far as I know it can appear high left or middle, to indicate that it
>> >should be pronounced after the consonant, or right, to pronounce it
before.
>> >So the meaning of a shin with two dots above it is ambiguous,
>>
>> In classical Hebrew KHOLEM always represents a trailing vowel, i.e. it is
>> always pronounced after the consonant over which it is written. [In fact
>> I can't think of ANY vowel sign in classical Hebrew which represents a
>> pronunciation that precedes the consonant to which it is associated,
>> ignoring, for obvious reasons, written/read (kethib/qere) orthographies,
>> where the vowels indicate what is to be read in spite of the consonants
>> that are written.] And so the graphemic sequence SHIN KHOLEM is never
>> ambiguous in classical Hebrew. (I don't know about modern Israeli Hebrew.)
>
>"When holem precedes ?,  the point is placed on the
>upper right of the letter, as with ?? (yo¯'mar).
>When it follows the ?, the point is placed on the
>upper left, as in ? ('o¯bhe¯dh). When holem precedes
>??, the points coincide, as with ?? (mo¯sel).
>When holem follows ??, the points again coincide as
>with ?? (so¯t?e¯n). The letter ??? will be "so¯" to
>commence a syllabe, e.g., ?? (so¯ma'), and "o¯s" in
>other places."
>
>[ R.K. Harrison, Teach Yourself Biblical Hebrew ]

The case of (written) Yo'MaR is not an exception. The pronunciation is
"yomar", the aleph not being pronounced; and therefore the KHOLEM is
written after the consonant which directly precedes it in pronunciation.

In the examples 'oBeD, MoSHeL, and SoTeN the KHOLEM, as expected, follows
in pronunciation the letter with which it is associated.

I can't make out the transcription "The letter ??? will be "so¯" to
commence a syllabe, e.g., ?? (so¯ma'), and "o¯s" in other places."
and I don't have Harrison's grammar at work to check the reading; but it
sounds like an explanation of how SHIN + KHOLEM are written, which has
already been discussed.


>In the Bagster Polyglot Bible, Hebrew-English Old Testament, translation
>Everard van der Hooght,
>Genesis 1.3 "weyyomer elohiem"  "And God said"
>the holem is clearly above the aleph, not above the yod.

Same response given for YoMaR above.


>I see in fact _another_ example of a holem to the right, which Harrison
>did not mention:
>the holem in "elohiem" is above the he, not above the lamed.

Due to innate complexity there is variation in Hebrew pointing in
manuscripts and printed editions, even leaving aside for the moment
discussion of the various Hebrew pointing traditions themselves. But,
although KHOLEM following LAMED is indeed orthographically a somewhat
special case (due to the fact that LAMED is the only Hebrew character to
extend above the scribal line and the extension is precisely from the
upper left corner of the glyph where you "want" to place the KHOLEM), I
have nevertheless always seen it written between the LAMED and the
following glyph but closer to the LAMED. This is certainly how it is
taught and printed these days. 

I don't have my Bagster here at work but I would suspect if you looked
closely, the location of the KHOLEM would be as I have suggested. If not
I suspect this is idiosyncratic to works printed on that press. 

[I did however misspeak technically when I said "after the consonant OVER
which it is written". The KHOLEM pronounced after LAMED is indeed written
OVER the scribal line, but is written directly AFTER the LAMED.]


>> About the only "unusual" orthographic phenomenon I can think of related
>> to KHOLEM is that when it occurs after SIN it "shares the same dot"
>with SIN.
>
>And if those dots were above different letters there were no reason why
>they should share.

I must be missing your point here; this seems to support what I was saying.


But I'm surprised that no one has provided the one possible
counterexample to my statement about no vowel preceding its consonant (an
example I completely forgot about when writing my former post) -  furtive
pathach (as in the second a-vowel in SaMeaKH). 

Depending on your linguistic persuasion you might argue that the PATAKH
here is a vowel glide, both written and pronounced, which is merely
"extending" a non-a-vowel before guttural consonants in certain phonemic
contexts. Or you might want to posit that it is the only example of a
syllable in classical Hebrew beginning with a vowel - or an unwritten
consonant.

Probably more than we need to know about the originally posted problem,
but I have a feeling that readers of this list enjoy, like I do,
discussion of these orthographic quirks of the world's writing systems.


Respectfully,

Dean A. Snyder
Scholarly Technology Specialist
Center For Scholarly Resources, Sheridan Libraries
Garrett Room, MSE Library, 3400 N. Charles St.
The Johns Hopkins Uni

Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[John Hudson]

At 07:57 AM 3/5/2003, Dean Snyder wrote:

About the only "unusual" orthographic phenomenon I can think of related
to KHOLEM is that when it occurs after SIN it "shares the same dot" with SIN.
Not always. I have not done a close analysis of manuscript sources, but I 
wouldn't be surprised to find that this practice is largely due to 
technical limitations in older typesetting systems and/or the conventions 
of particular script styles. The question was raised recently during our 
development of a set of fonts for biblical scholarship: I told the clients 
they had a choice of whether to combine the holam and sin dots or to have 
them separate. The clear preference was to have them separate. This was 
possible because, following the convention of the sephardic style on which 
the new font is based, the sin and shin dots do not sit at the *extreme* 
left and right of the shin letter, so there is a little extra space into 
which to insert a holam. This would be more difficult in an ashkenazic 
style, and particularly difficult in older typesetting systems that would 
not allow dynamic adjustment of holam relative to other marks.

John Hudson

Tiro Typeworks  www.tiro.com
Vancouver, BC   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
It is necessary that by all means and cunning,
the cursed owners of books should be persuaded
to make them available to us, either by argument
or by force.  - Michael Apostolis, 1467

Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[Chris Jacobs]

- Original Message -
From: "Dean Snyder" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Unicode List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2003 4:57 PM
Subject: Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs


> Chris Jacobs wrote at 12:54 AM on Wednesday, March 5, 2003:
>
> >But why do you call the kholam a "high left dot"?
> >
> >As far as I know it can appear high left or middle, to indicate that it
> >should be pronounced after the consonant, or right, to pronounce it before.
> >So the meaning of a shin with two dots above it is ambiguous,
>
> In classical Hebrew KHOLEM always represents a trailing vowel, i.e. it is
> always pronounced after the consonant over which it is written. [In fact
> I can't think of ANY vowel sign in classical Hebrew which represents a
> pronunciation that precedes the consonant to which it is associated,
> ignoring, for obvious reasons, written/read (kethib/qere) orthographies,
> where the vowels indicate what is to be read in spite of the consonants
> that are written.] And so the graphemic sequence SHIN KHOLEM is never
> ambiguous in classical Hebrew. (I don't know about modern Israeli Hebrew.)

"When holem precedes א,  the point is placed on the
upper right of the letter, as with יֹאמַר (yō’mǎr).
When it follows the א, the point is placed on the
upper left, as in אֹבֵד (’ōbhēdh). When holem precedes
שׁ, the points coincide, as with מֹשֶׁל (mōšěl).
When holem follows שׂ, the points again coincide as
with שֹׂטֵן (sōṭēn). The letter שֹׁ will be "šō" to
commence a syllabe, e.g., שֹׁמַע (šōmǎ‘), and "ōs" in
other places."

[ R.K. Harrison, Teach Yourself Biblical Hebrew ]

In the Bagster Polyglot Bible, Hebrew-English Old Testament, translation Everard van 
der Hooght,
Genesis 1.3 "weyyomer elohiem"  "And God said"
the holem is clearly above the aleph, not above the yod.
I see in fact _another_ example of a holem to the right, which Harrison did not 
mention:
the holem in "elohiem" is above the he, not above the lamed.

> About the only "unusual" orthographic phenomenon I can think of related
> to KHOLEM is that when it occurs after SIN it "shares the same dot" with SIN.

And if those dots were above different letters there were no reason why they should 
share.

> Respectfully,
>
> Dean A. Snyder
> Scholarly Technology Specialist
> Center For Scholarly Resources, Sheridan Libraries
> Garrett Room, MSE Library, 3400 N. Charles St.
> The Johns Hopkins University
> Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218
>
> office: 410 516-6850 mobile: 410 245-7168 fax: 410-516-6229
> Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project: www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi
> Manager, Initiative for Cuneiform Encoding: www.jhu.edu/ice

Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[Dean Snyder]

Chris Jacobs wrote at 12:54 AM on Wednesday, March 5, 2003:

>But why do you call the kholam a "high left dot"?
>
>As far as I know it can appear high left or middle, to indicate that is
>should be pronounced after the consonant, or right, to pronounce it before.
>So the meaning of a shin with two dots above it is ambiguous,

In classical Hebrew KHOLEM always represents a trailing vowel, i.e. it is
always pronounced after the consonant over which it is written. [In fact
I can't think of ANY vowel sign in classical Hebrew which represents a
pronunciation that precedes the consonant to which it is associated,
ignoring, for obvious reasons, written/read (kethib/qere) orthographies,
where the vowels indicate what is to be read in spite of the consonants
that are written.] And so the graphemic sequence SHIN KHOLEM is never
ambiguous in classical Hebrew. (I don't know about modern Israeli Hebrew.)

About the only "unusual" orthographic phenomenon I can think of related
to KHOLEM is that when it occurs after SIN it "shares the same dot" with SIN.


Respectfully,

Dean A. Snyder
Scholarly Technology Specialist
Center For Scholarly Resources, Sheridan Libraries
Garrett Room, MSE Library, 3400 N. Charles St.
The Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218

office: 410 516-6850 mobile: 410 245-7168 fax: 410-516-6229
Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project: www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi
Manager, Initiative for Cuneiform Encoding: www.jhu.edu/ice

Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

[Chris Jacobs]

- Original Message -
From: "Robert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 9:34 PM
Subject: The display of *kholam* on PCs

> Hello!
> Have you notice that-when using Microsoft's standard core fonts, for an example, to 
> type/display/print Hebrew-extra space gets
> added onto
> the *kholam* (high left dot) vowel point that really shouldn't be there?!?!
> Whenever a *kholam* is put to a letter's left (instead of atop a *waw* for a vowel), 
> unwanted extra space gets inbetween the
> *kholam* and the > preceeding/following letter(s).  Has anyone contacted Microsoft 
> about that?!

I did not contact them, did you?

But why do you call the kholam a "high left dot"?

As far as I know it can appear high left or middle, to indicate that is should be 
pronounced after the consonant, or right, to
pronounce it before.
So the meaning of a shin with two dots above it is ambiguous, it could either be

ֹשׂ \u05b9\u05e9\u05c2 os

or

שֹׁ \u05e9\u05c1\u05b9 sho

This displays indeed wrongly on my system in Outlook Express.

Bidi seems to get confused if I start a hebrew text with a vowel.

The display of *kholam* on PCs

[Robert]

Hello!
Have you notice that—when using Microsoft's standard core fonts, for an example, to 
type/display/print Hebrew—extra space gets added onto the *kholam* (high left dot) 
vowel point that really shouldn't be there?!?!  Whenever a *kholam* is put to a 
letter's left (instead of atop a *waw* for a vowel), unwanted extra space gets 
inbetween the *kholam* and the preceeding/following letter(s).  Has anyone contacted 
Microsoft about that?!
There shouldn't be any extra space on *kholam*—it should hug the left side of the 
letter it goes with—any following letters should be up close on the opposite side of 
that.
The *shuruq* point (a dot inside the bosom of *waw* should rise up towards the head, 
but still be inside *waw*—immediately just under its head.  *Shuruq* is another Hebrew 
presentation form that represents a vowel that's an independent whole character (which 
hasn't yet been proposed), like *kholam maleh* (that's allready in Unicode).  I hope 
I've informed you on this situation.
Thank You!

Robert Lloyd Wheelock
Augusta, ME  USA



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