On Sat, 10 Mar 2001, Jonathan Rosenne wrote:
> Regarding Hebrew:
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Nick NICHOLAS [mailto:nicholas@uci.edu]
> > Sent: Friday, March 09, 2001 10:12 PM
> > To: Unicode List
> > Cc: Nick NICHOLAS
> > Subject: Final letters in Hebrew and Arabic
>
> > (1) When a letter with a final variant appears alone --- say as a numeral,
> > or in discussion of the letter or phoneme --- does it under any
> > circumstances appear in its final form, or is it always medial?
>
Monday, March 12, 2001
When Hebrew letters are used as numbers, (probably not a current
mainstream practice) the final forms of kaph, mem, num, pe and ssadhe are
used to repreent 500, 600, 700, 800 and 900. My source: "Alphabete und
Schriftzeichen des Morgen- und des Abendlandes. 2. Aufl. Berlin:
Bundesdruckeri, 1969. Hence my use of German transliterated letter names.
Use of medial forms would thus change the numeric value; this would also
mean the final forms could appear in the middle of of a number. Nakanishi
(p. 32), Daniels and Bright, (p.490) and Van Ostermann (1952, p.120) only
give numeric values for Hebrew letters through 400. I do not know if it is
safe to infer from their silence that use of final forms for 500 to 900
is a seldom used twig of a seldom used branch.
Regards,
Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov )
The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official
views of any government or any agency of any.
Phone: 202 707-9612; Fax: 202 707-0955; US mail: I.T.S. Dev.Gp.4, Library
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