ThePalestinian vocalization,Palestinian pointing,Palestinian niqqud orVocalization of the Land of Israel (Hebrew:נִקּוּד אֶרֶץ־יִשְׂרְאֵלִי,romanized: niqqūḏ ʾereṣ-Yiśrəʾēli) is an extinct system ofniqqud (diacritics) devised by scholars to add to theHebrew Bible to indicate vowel quality. The Palestinian system is no longer used, long supplanted by theTiberian vocalization.
The Palestinian vocalization reflects a Hebrew dialect ofPalestine from the sixth to the eighth century, long after it had become extinct as afirst language before the third century.[1] After it was no longer used as avernacular, religious scholars preserved the previously distinct dialects; scholars of the era noted that Hebrew was still used it to communicate (Hebrew:לדבור) as late as the 10th century inTiberias.[2]
Palestinian Hebrew was a distinct dialect toSamaritan Hebrew, the Hebrew recorded in theDead Sea Scrolls, and to Babylonian andTiberian Hebrew.[3][4] Palestinian Hebrew is the antecedent to all modern pronunciations traditions of Hebrew except for that ofYemeni Hebrew, which is based on Babylonian Hebrew; the Tiberian pointing is universally employed but the dialect underlying it went extinct in the 12th century.[5]
A standard view among scholars is that the Palestinian system preceded the Tiberian system, but later came under the latter's influence and became more similar to the Tiberian tradition of the school ofAaron ben Moses ben Asher.[6] All known examples of the Palestinian vocalization come from theCairo Geniza, discovered at the end of the 19th century, although scholars had first encountered a reference to this system in 1839 inthe Vitry Machzor.[7][8] In particular, Palestinianpiyyutim generally make up the most ancient of the texts found, the earliest of which date to the 8th or 9th centuries and predate most of the known biblical fragments.[9]
Like with theBabylonian vocalization, only critical vowels are indicated.[10] The Palestinian and Babylonian vocalizations are known as "superlinear vocalizations" because they place the vowels above the consonant letters. The Tiberian system marks them both above and below.[11]
Different manuscripts show significant systematic variations in vocalization.[12] There is a general progression towards a more differentiated writing system closer to that ofTiberian Hebrew over time.[9]
The earliest manuscripts use just six graphemes, reflecting a pronunciation similar to contemporarySephardi Hebrew:[13]
| niqqud withב |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Tiberian analogue | patah, qamatz | segol, tzere | hiriq | holam | qubutz, shuruq | shva naʿ |
| value | /a/ | /e/ | /i/ | /o/ | /u/ | /ə/ |
The most commonly occurring Palestinian system uses eight graphemes, reflecting later vowel differentiation in the direction of Tiberian Hebrew:[13]
| niqqud withב | |  | |  | | | | |
| Tiberian analogue | patah | qamatz | segol | tzere | hiriq | holam | qubutz, shuruq | shva naʿ |
| value | /a/ | /ɔ/ | /ɛ/ | /e/ | /i/ | /o/ | /u/ | /ə/ |
Even so, most Palestinian manuscripts show interchanges between qamatz and patah, and between tzere and segol.[14] Shva is marked in multiple ways.[13]
Some manuscripts are vocalized with the Tiberian graphemes used in a manner closer to the Palestinian system.[15] The most widely accepted term for this vocalization system is thePalestino-Tiberian vocalization.[15] This system originated in the east, most likely in Palestine.[15] It spread to central Europe by the middle of the 12th century in modified form, often used by Ashkenazi scribes due to its greater affinity with oldAshkenazi Hebrew than the Tiberian system.[16] For a period of time both were used in biblical and liturgical texts, but by the middle of the 14th century it had ceased being used in favor of the Tiberian vocalization.[16]