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
