On 08/07/2003 09:26, Ted Hopp wrote:
Also, there are missing letters and there are missing letters. There are
cases of a single text (e.g., Holzhausen Bible of 1889, Lowe and Brydone
Bible of 1948, as documented by Yannis Haralambous) where the "missing
letters" in some words are simply not present in the representation and the
vowels are placed on the consonants that do appear (not only Yerushala(y)im,
but also "ke(ch)o(l )asher" in Ezekiel 9:11, for instance, where the kaf is
combined with a dagesh, sheva, holam, and tipcha),...
This sequence, although interesting for the discussion, is in fact not a
problem for Unicode, as this ordering is both the logical one and the
canonical one, except for the position of the dagesh which is a problem
with all dageshes.
... while the missing letters
in other words are denoted by an asterisk, space, or other visible device
(in one, case, an isolated dagesh with a tsere and mapach in BHS, Isaiah
54:16).
This looks to me like a final nun with dagesh, vowel and cantillation.
Anomalous, but not an encoding problem. Final kaf regularly takes dagesh
and vowel.
... So even if Unicode had a code point
for "MISSING LETTER", it wouldn't be usable for both Yerushala(y)im and for
the 30 or so cases of visual indications of missing letter in Tanakh that
are documented by Haralambous.
I know I have seen this list somewhere, but can you remind us of the
reference and if possible the URL?
--
Peter Kirk
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~peterkirk/
