Tag Info

I linked in the comments to the question to an article by Dan Rabinowitz published by Hakirah journal regarding Jewish sources pertaining to the origin of the nekudos. [Note that although the taamim of the Tanach are not mentioned throughout the article, it seems implicit in most of the sources (and in the main source, actually explicit) that the same ...

It should not have a dagesh. Throughout Tanach, most every mem with a sh'va as the first letter of present-tense verb in piel or pual has no dagesh after a he hay'dia according to the m'sora (and the same is usually true of any mem with a sh'va), and I have no reason to believe that that changed in later Hebrew (certainly not by the time "Modim" was ...

Rashi on Berachot 62A says that people used to use hand signs to indicate the proper vocalization of the words as the Torah was read. I have heard from several different people, but not seen in writing, that the nekudot and taamim that are printed today are attempts to pictographically represent these hand gestures. This would explain why earlier texts such ...