The Samaritan vocalization (or Samaritan pointing, Samaritan

niqqud In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud ( or ) is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such diacritical systems were developed in the ...

, he, ניקוד שומרוני) is a system of diacritics used with the

Samaritan script The Samaritan script is used by the Samaritans for religious writings, including the Samaritan Pentateuch, writings in Samaritan Hebrew, and for commentaries and translations in Samaritan Aramaic and occasionally Arabic. Samaritan is a direc ...

to indicate

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...

quality and

gemination In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...

which reflects

Samaritan Hebrew Samaritan Hebrew () is a reading tradition used liturgically by the Samaritans for reading the Ancient Hebrew language of the Samaritan Pentateuch, in contrast to Tiberian Hebrew among the Jews. For the Samaritans, Ancient Hebrew ceased to be a ...

. It is used by the

Samaritans Samaritans (; ; he, שומרונים, translit=Šōmrōnīm, lit=; ar, السامريون, translit=as-Sāmiriyyūn) are an ethnoreligious group who originate from the ancient Israelites. They are native to the Levant and adhere to Samarit ...

to provide guidance on the pronunciation of the consonantal text of the

Samaritan Pentateuch The Samaritan Torah ( Samaritan Hebrew: , ''Tōrāʾ''), also called the Samaritan Pentateuch, is a text of the Torah written in the Samaritan script and used as sacred scripture by the Samaritans. It dates back to one of the ancient version ...

and Samaritan prayer books. The Samaritan vocalization is estimated to have been invented around the 10th centuryCE. Variation exists within the system between different manuscripts.

Description

References

Language of the Hebrew Bible Hebrew alphabet {{Semitic-lang-stub

Description

See also

References