Abstract

Medieval Hebrew and Syriac scribes both indicated vowels by placing dots above or below their consonantal writing. These vowel points were created in the Late Antique and early Islamic periods to disam-biguate the vocalization of important texts, especially the Bible. The earliest step in this process was the implementation of the Syriac ‘diacritic dot’ system, which used a single dot to distinguish pairs of homographs: a dot ‘above’ marked a word with relatively-backed vowels, and a dot ‘below’ marked its homograph with relatively-fronted vowels. This graphic depiction conveyed a phonological association of ‘height’ with ‘backness’, and that association then entered the Maso-retic Hebrew tradition in the form of mille'el (‘above’) and millera' (‘below’) homograph comparisons. In turn, this principle of backness as ‘height’ informed the later placement of both the Syriac and the Tiberian Hebrew vowel points.1¹

中文翻译：

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传达观点：在叙利亚语和希伯来语声母中编码元音语音

摘要

中世纪的希伯来语和叙利亚语抄写员都通过在其辅音文字的上方或下方放置圆点来表示元音。这些元音点创建于古董后期和伊斯兰早期，以消除对重要文本（尤其是圣经）发声的歧义。此过程的最早步骤是实施叙利亚语的“变音点”系统，该系统使用单个点来区分成对的同形异义词：“上”点用相对支持的元音标记一个单词，而“下”点标记一个单词。它的同形字带有相对正面的元音。这种图形描绘传达了“身高”与“后背”的语音联系，然后这种联系以毫' el（'上方'）和millera'的形式进入了希伯来传统的马索语传统。（以下）同形异义词比较。反过来，作为backness“高度”这一原则既通报了叙利亚和泰伯利亚希伯来元音points.1的后面放置¹