Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

From: Dean Snyder (dean.snyder@jhu.edu)
Date: Thu Mar 06 2003 - 09:29:38 EST

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    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, <http://linguistsoftware.com/>. 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



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