The Targums: A Critical Introduction

Appendix B: A Guide to Babylonian Pointing

499 Appendix B A Guide to Babylonian Pointing In published texts, Aramaic vowel pointing for the dialects of Jewish Aramaic usually follows that of the Tiberian pointing for Hebrew. There are a two main exceptions. First, many of the eastern Aramaic manuscripts use supralinear pointing, also known as Babylonian pointing and occasionally as Yemenite pointing , since it is most frequently found in manuscripts of Yemenite origin. Since Alexander Sperber relied heavily on manuscripts of such eastern origins in his editions of Targum Onqelos and Targum Jonathan, he used this form of vowel pointing in the publication of his edition, The Bible in Aramaic. Unfortunately, there is no readily accessible table of these vowel signs, so we provide one below with its Tiberian equivalents. Second, Computer Bibles which contain Onqelos and Jonathan—such as the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, Accordance and BibleWorks—have reproduced the Babylonian pointing using Tiberian signs. Since the two systems are not quite equivalent, the table contains those variations as well. Tiberian Babylonian Babylonian in Computer Bibles Qameṣ ‫ּמ‬ ‫ּמ‬ ‫ּמ‬ Pathaḥ ‫ּמ‬ ‫ּמ‬ ‫ּמ‬ Seghol ‫ּמ‬ ‫ּמ‬ ‫ּמ‬ Ṣere ‫ּמ‬ ‫ּמ‬ ‫ּמ‬ Ḥireq ‫ּמ‬ ‫ּמ‬ ‫ּמ‬ Ḥolem ֺ‫ו‬‫ּמ‬ ‫ּמ‬ ֺ‫ו‬‫ּמ‬ Shureq ‫ּמּו‬ ‫ּמ‬ ‫ּמּו‬ Shewa ְ ‫ּמ‬ ֲ ‫ּמ‬ ‫ּמ‬ ְ ‫ּמ‬ ֲ ‫ּמ‬ ֵ ְ ִ ֽ ַ ...