Furtive Patah

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: J. W. Johnston
         

In the Ezra SIL font the patah (i.e., the patah moved slightly to the right under final gutterals such as het) automatically adjusts itself depending on context. The SBL Hebrew font does not seem to have the same capability. Is this planned for the font, and, if not, is there a way to achieve it in the SBL font?

         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: John Hudson
         

I will need to look into this. Since I'm a type designer, not a Hebraist, I need to familiarise myself with the rules for furtive patah before I can implement it.  I have a copy of Gesenius, and will consult this.

 

If you are able to provide a list of the circumstances in which patah is positioned in this way, I can make contextual lookups. It is important to determine whether the patah should always be 'furtive' in a given context.

         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: Peter Kirk
         
On 16/04/2004 11:52, John Hudson wrote:

>
>     **
>    
>
>
>     I will need to look into this. Since I'm a type designer, not a
>     Hebraist, I need to familiarise myself with the rules for furtive
>     patah before I can implement it.  I have a copy of Gesenius, and
>     will consult this.
>      
>     If you are able to provide a list of the circumstances in which
>     patah is positioned in this way, I can make contextual lookups. It
>     is important to determine whether the patah should always be
>     'furtive' in a given context.
>
>
>    
>
I think it is safe to say that a patah on the last consonant of a word,
including before maqaf, is always "furtive". This seems to be the rule
in Hebrew but just might not be the rule in other languages using Hebrew
script. Also, furtive patah occurs only under he (with mappiq), het,
ayin and possibly alef.

I think the question needs to be whether you want to make this
distinction. It is made in BHS, but not, I think, in most other
printings of pointed Hebrew, in which furtive patah is centred just like
any other patah.

If special positioning is not generally required but some users would
like it, it might be possible to specify that patah> be used for the variant positioning.

--
Peter Kirk
peter@qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk@qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/


         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: John Hudson
         

C.L. Seow’s A grammar for Biblical Hebrew, which I picked up today has this to say about furtive patah:

 

When a word ends in ×— ,×”Ö¼ or ×¢, an additional patah appears under the guttural, if the word does not already end in an a-class vowel. This furtive patah is pronounced before the final guttural, although it is written under that guttural, and in most editions of the Hebrew Bible, slightly to the right of centre: [example]. ... The furtive patah is not considered a vowel, not counted as a syllable, and not stressed; it is understood that the stress is on the vowel before the furtive patah.

 

Is this substantially correct? The word ‘additional’ in the first sentence is confusing, since none of the examples given in this section of the book contain any patah other than the furtive one; I am presuming that this is simply awkward wording and means ‘an additional kind’ of patah.

 

Looking at this, it seems to me that the context would be any instance of these three letters occuring at the end of a word (or before maqaf). To clarify, the furtive patah be encoded following the final letter, not following the preceding letter, even though that is where it would be pronounced?

 

Might the final letter with furtive patah also carry an accent?

 

I'm a bit confused by the reference to the word ‘already ending in an a-class vowel'. Can someone explain this to me?

 

Word-ending context in OpenType lookups triggered by space character glyphs is not 100% reliable, as some applications do not keep track of space character glyphs at line endings; this means that a gutteral occuring at the end of a line may not trigger furtive patah positioning in some applications. I have a way around this, but it means adding an extra glyph to the font for each word-final character that needs to be used in such lookups.

 

Any more information about furtive patah greatly appreciated.

         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: avi
         

Dear John,

 

I understand your confusion regarding the passage you cited. For typesetting purposes, you can ignore the other terms, and just follow the rule you stated - if a patah falls on a hey, khet, or ayin at the end of a word, it is a furtive patah. 

 

[Further, a quick search on the Aleppo Codex CD has confirmed that the rule can even be simplifed further, since the *only* instances of a patah on the last letter of a word are such instances (on ayin, khet, or mapiq heh). Thus, it seems that we can just state, "any patah which appears on the last letter of a word".  (If anyone has any evidence to the contrary, though - perhaps a qeri/ketiv - please feel free to object.)]

 

Regarding your query: Might the final letter with furtive patah also carry an accent:

 

It is true that the furtive patah will never be the accented syllable. However, masoretic texts place certain accents on the last letter of the word, regardless of whether it is the accented syllable or not. These include: pashta, segol, zarqa, telisha. Additionally, it may take a ga'aya.

 

Finally, note that afterwards, in addition to space or maqaf, there may possible be a paseq. (for instance, if the word is part of a l'garmaih construction). Nevertheless, I notice that this unicode character (05C0) is already marked in the unicode standard as "spacing punctuation", so it should not pose a problem.

 

Avi Shmidman

Alon Shvut, Israel

 

         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: Peter Kirk
         
On 17/04/2004 20:17, John Hudson wrote:

>
>     **
>    
>
>     C.L. Seow’s /A grammar for Biblical Hebrew, /which I picked up
>     today has this to say about furtive patah:
>     /When a word ends in /? ,?? or ?, /an additional /patah/ appears
>     under the guttural, if the word does not already end in an
>     /a/-class vowel. This /furtive patah/ is pronounced before the
>     final guttural, although it is written under that guttural, and in
>     most editions of the Hebrew Bible, slightly to the right of
>     centre: /[example]. /... The furtive /patah/ is not considered a
>     vowel, not counted as a syllable, and not stressed; it is
>     understood that the stress is on the vowel before the furtive /patah.
>     //
>     Is this substantially correct? The word ‘additional’ in the first
>     sentence is confusing, since none of the examples given in this
>     section of the book contain any /patah/ other than the furtive
>     one; I am presuming that this is simply awkward wording and means
>     ‘an additional kind’ of /patah./
>     Looking at this, it seems to me that the context would be any
>     instance of these three letters occuring at the end of a word (or
>     before /maqaf/). To clarify, the furtive /patah/ be encoded
>     following the final letter, not following the preceding letter,
>     even though that is where it would be pronounced?
>     Might the final letter with furtive /patah/ also carry an accent?
>     I'm a bit confused by the reference to the word ‘already ending in
>     an /a/-class vowel'. Can someone explain this to me?
>     Word-ending context in OpenType lookups triggered by space
>     character glyphs is not 100% reliable, as some applications do not
>     keep track of space character glyphs at line endings; this means
>     that a gutteral occuring at the end of a line may not trigger
>     furtive /patah/ positioning in some applications. I have a way
>     around this, but it means adding an extra glyph to the font for
>     each word-final character that needs to be used in such lookups.
>     Any more information about furtive /patah/ greatly appreciated.
>
>
>    
>
Just to confirm Avi's comments. Ga'ya is an alternative name for meteg,
at least in some contexts. Sof pasuq may also occur word finally - and
it is probably good to treat all punctuation (but not accents) as
terminating a word for these purposes. The furtive patah is indeed
encoded following the final letter, although pronounced before it.

The point about "additional" is that this is added to whatever other
vowel points the word may have, to indicate an off-glide. a-class vowels
are qamats and patah (presumably also hataf patah, but that is never in
the last syllable); a furtive patah is not added when the one of these
is otherwise the last vowel. (I am not sure if this rule applies when
the qamats is qamats qatan (or qamats hatuf) i.e. an O sound; I don't
think there is ever a furtive patah after a qamats qatan but this may be
because other phonological changes take precedence.)

While we are talking about word final marking: do you shift the position
of pashta and perhaps zarqa/tsinor when they are word final? This seems
to be the correct approach (although I intend to clarify this with the
Unicode people): a pashta is logically distinct from a qadma/azla, even
though word medially they may be positioned almost the same. My
recommendation would be to position pashta a little further left than
qadma/azla when word medial, but quite a lot further left, in fact to
the left of the left edge of the word final letter, when word final. And
similarly with zarqa/tsinor vs. tsonorit. (But I know that Ezra SIL has
taken a different approach, expecting a word medial pashta to be encoded
as qadma/azla, which may be OK for rendering but messes up all kinds of
other processing.)

--
Peter Kirk
peter@qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk@qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/


         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: twuandy
         
What's the big deal with furtive patach?  It's simply a patach placed under
a chet or an ayin at word end.  You can pronounce it where you want.  Just
make sure it fits right under the chet.
twuandy

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[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: J. W. Johnston
         

Twuandy,

 

I really began the discussion to inquire about adherence to BHS-style typesetting conventions when necessary, not about pronunciation.

 

So, I can follow up to the list with this question: have editors generally moved away from the offset patah?

 

Thanks.

         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: John Hudson
         

I would appreciate it if someone could provide me with a citation (book chapter:verse:word) for an example of each of the letters taking furtive patah. That way I can compare positioning in a variety of editions (I've been flipping through my new JPS Tanakh, and no examples have leapt out at me; someone who knows the Hebrew text better can probably point to some examples easily).

 

 

Regarding medial pashta vs. qadma, this perhaps deserves a thread of its own. This is one issue that is unresolved in the current SBL Hebrew font, and I have not decided whether to add the necessary complex contextual lookups to reposition the pashta when it occurs in mid-word. There are issues related to holam displacement that make this non-trivial, but I am leaning toward a contextual lookup solution.

         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: Pim_12
         
John wrote:
> I would appreciate it if someone could provide me
> with a citation (book chapter:verse:word) for an
> example of each of the letters taking furtive patah.

1) he-mappiq plus furtive patah: 1Sam 16:7 (w'el-)gboah
2) het plus furtive patah: Gen 1:2 wruah
3) `ayin plus furtive patah: Gen 1:29 zorea`
(Not that I know the Hebrew text well, it was just easy for me to find these instances with the tools I have. Apologies for the clumsy transliteration of the Hebrew.)

Peter Kirk wrote:
> I think the question needs to be whether you want
> to make this distinction. It is made in BHS, but not,
> I think, in most other printings of pointed Hebrew,
> in which furtive patah is centred just like any other
> patah.

I think that because the distinction is made in BHS it should be there in the font also. Those who do not need this particular typographical distinction won't be bothered by its presence, while those who insist on it will not want to be without it.

HTH,

Pim (delurking very briefly after a saturation dose of Dead Sea Scrolls work)

(John: I'll come back to you on the masora dot matter.  Have not yet been able to consistently trigger the errant behavior in Word.)
         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: Aaron0327
         

While it is true that furtive patach should occur
only with final hehs with mappiq (along with final ayin and het), the Massoretes
were somewhat inconsistent in the marking of mappiq, which means that there are
a number of words ending in heh, with furtive patach but without mappiq.  I
know of no exception to the following rule:  The patach occuring with any
final heh, with mappiq or without, is furtive (and should [may] be written
slightly to the right of center under the heh [ayin or het]).

 

Aaron Hornkohl,

----- Original Message -----

From:
SBL
  Fonts

To: SBL Fonts

Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 11:36
  PM

Subject: Re: Furtive Patah

	New Message on SBL Fonts

Furtive
    Patah

Reply

Recommend Message 10 in                 Discussion

From: Pim_12 John wrote: > I would                 appreciate it if someone could provide me > with a                 citation (book chapter:verse:word) for an > example of                 each of the letters taking furtive patah. 1) he-mappiq                 plus furtive patah: 1Sam 16:7 (w'el-)gboah 2) het plus                 furtive patah: Gen 1:2 wruah 3) `ayin plus furtive patah: Gen                 1:29 zorea` (Not that I know the Hebrew text well, it was                 just easy for me to find these instances with the tools I have.                 Apologies for the clumsy transliteration of the                 Hebrew.) Peter Kirk wrote: > I think the question                 needs to be whether you want > to make this distinction.                 It is made in BHS, but not, > I think, in most other                 printings of pointed Hebrew, > in which furtive patah is                 centred just like any other > patah. I think that                 because the distinction is made in BHS it should be there in the                 font also. Those who do not need this particular typographical                 distinction won't be bothered by its presence, while those who                 insist on it will not want to be without                 it. HTH, Pim (delurking very briefly after a                 saturation dose of Dead Sea Scrolls work) (John: I'll                 come back to you on the masora dot matter. Have not yet been                 able to consistently trigger the errant behavior in             Word.)

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[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: John Hudson
         

Aaron, can you give me a Biblical citation for a final heh without mappiq with furtive patach, i.e. an example of this masoretic inconsistency? I am in the process of comparing a number of different Bible editions.

         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: John Hudson
         

I think that because the distinction is made in BHS it should be there in the font also.

 

This is also my inclination. To date, when in doubt, I have followed what has been done in BHS (although the style of the typeface and hence some of the accents is different), since this is the edition with which most of the intended users of the font are most familiar.

 

I also note -- thanks for the references, Pim -- that the JPS Tankakh also consistently positions furtive patach to the right.

         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: avi
         

I have further found that both the Hebrew University Bible Project (the folio blue volumes), as well as the Hebrew University reconstructed Masoretic Text (the red single volume), shift over the furtive patah's.

 

Nevertheless, I wonder whether this usage has won any adherents outside of the Biblical world. Although the font's primary intention is for Bible publishing, I also hope to use it in my work on poetic and liturgical texts from the Cairo Genizah; in this field, the furtive patah is generally placed in its usual place, without any shift.  Thus, if the shift is indeed added into the font, will there be a way to disable it (perhaps placing a ZWNJ immediately afterward?)

 

> a Biblical citation for a final heh without mappiq with furtive patach,

> i.e. an example of this masoretic inconsistency?

 

A search over Bar Ilan University's reconstructed Masoretic Text according to the Aleppo Codex shows that all 89 instances of futive patah on the heh occur with mappiq. However, it is not out of the question that other Masoretic Texts would disagree on some of the mappiq's.

 

In any case, futive patah on the heh is very infrequent, compared with that of the other two letters - I find 1125 instances on the khet, and 1473 on the ayin, compared with the 89 on the heh. (And interstingly, of the latter, nearly half are found in the book of Job - in which the word "e-lo-a" is predominant).

 

- Avi Shmidman

 

 

 

         

[ArchivePoster]

Posted by: Aaron0327
         

Dear John,

 

Sure, here are a few of the 20 (?) that I have
found:  the word 'eloah in Deut 31:15, 17;
gavoah Isa 2:15; yagiah Isa 13:10.

 

Hope that helps. 

 

By the way, I agree with you that it should be an
option to place the furtive patach slightly to right of center under these final
letters.  I wonder if the tendency not to write it like this today is a
result of font/type-setting problems, as it is normally written slightly to the
right in manuscripts (and thus in texts, like BHS, that follow
them).

 

Aaron

----- Original Message -----

From:
John Hudson

To: SBL Fonts

Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 7:45
  AM

Subject: Re: Furtive Patah

	New Message on SBL Fonts

Furtive
    Patah

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From: John Hudson Aaron, can you give me a Biblical citation for a final heh                 without mappiq with furtive patach, i.e. an example of this                 masoretic inconsistency? I am in the process of comparing a                 number of different Bible       editions.

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