The two forms of vav with holam are also distinguished in the alpha release of "The Unicode Leningrad Codex", available from http://whi.wts.edu/WHI/Members/klowery/eL/index_html. The vowel form, Ted's holam male, is encoded as holam followed by vav, and the consonant vav with holam is encoded simply as that. See for example the distinction in the following copied from Genesis 4:13, where the two forms are adjacent and clearly distinct in the printed BHS:[The following was posted to the Biblical Hebrew list and I am forwarding it as potentially helpful information regarding this issue, which was raised here. Not sure whether I should post the name/source?]
I have not at hand now facsimiles of the L and Aleppo manuscripts, but I am nearly sure that the editors of the BHS just copied a distinction that already is in the manuscript.
I have checked the facsimiles of the following manuscripts and editions that I have at hand and all of them differentiate clearly betwen holam + vav mater lectionis and vav consonant + holam:
Gottweig (Austria), Stiftsbibliothek, ms. 10 and 11 (883), XIV or XV century (Pentateuch + Prophtets, square Ashkenazic script)
Second Rabbinic Bible (Venice 1524-1525), by Jacob ben Hayyim.
Biblia Polyglotta Complutensis (Alcalá de Henares, 1514-1517)
גָּדֹ֥ול עֲוֹנִ֖י
05D2 05BC 05B8 05D3 05B9 05A5 05D5 05DC 0020 05E2 05B2 05D5 05B9 05E0 05B4 0596 05D9
gimel dagesh qamats dalet holam merkha vav lamed space ayin hataf-patah vav holam nun hiriq tipeha yod
I know Kirk Lowery's intention was to encode the Leningrad Codex exactly as written, and I assume that as a careful scholar he is doing so. Of course he might like to check his work, so I am copying this to him.
So this:
(a) tends to confirm that the distinction was made in an MS very nearly 1000 years old;
(b) confirms that it is made, and encoded thus, in one publicly available Unicode Hebrew Bible text.
-- Peter Kirk [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://web.onetel.net.uk/~peterkirk/
