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I just read in Rav Kapach's introduction to his edition of Rav Saadiah Gaon's translation and commentary on Sefer Daniel that his grandfather had a manuscript of Rav Saadiah Gaon's translation which was punctuated with the Babylonian niqqud. This implies that his grandfather was proficient in the Babylonian niqqud, or at least had some familiarity with it. Were Yemenite Jews in general capable of reading the Babylonian niqqud system, and did they write in it, up through the twentieth century?

(Note: It might also be relevant that the pronunciation system represented in the Babylonian niqqud is similar to that of the traditional Teimani pronunciation in that patach and segol are merged into a single vowel.)

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    I'm pretty sure it was indeed used in Yemen until recently for certain specific texts
    – Double AA ♦
    Commented Dec 6, 2013 at 4:31
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    @malper the niqqud changed from the tom of the word to the bottom pretty recently. it was much easier to read the niqqudheem on top but they switched to be part of the "bigger picture" as they have done with many things in their masoro. however the pronunciation was kept the same. so when writing with the niqqud of todays times, when there is a segol, they would continue to pronounce it as a a because there was no segol in the babylonian niqqudheem (there was no segol with the nidduqheem ontop of words).
    – MoriDowidhYa3aqov
    Commented Dec 6, 2013 at 4:39
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    @MoriDoweedhYaa3gob I would argue that there was one symbol for segol and patach because they were pronounced the same, rather than the other way around.
    – user3318
    Commented Dec 6, 2013 at 17:29
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    @MoriDoweedhYaa3gob That seems unlikely. Linguists can track the sound changes that lead to the Masorete and Babylonian traditions, and they appear to be the natural result of sound shift over time.
    – user3318
    Commented Dec 6, 2013 at 18:25
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    @MoriDoweedhYaa3gob Not necessarily "later". I think it developed in parallel.
    – user3318
    Commented Dec 6, 2013 at 18:34

2 Answers 2

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The Babylonian system derives its name from its place of origin, but it was also found well out of Babylon. In Yemen, for instance, manuscripts following this system have been used up to this day. The earliest manuscripts using this system are a Geniza fragment from Cairo of the beginning of the tenth century and a complete manuscript of the Prophets of 916. The texts with Babylonian vocalization show a prolonged development and they are accordingly sometimes classified according to certain periods and the kinds of pronunciations characteristic of them.

- Martin Jan Mulder, "The Transmission of the Biblical Text". Pages 87-135 of Martin Jan Mulder (ed.), Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 109.

Also:

The Jews of Yemen must have been in close touch with Babylonia, since they reckoned time according to the Seleucidan era, and this chronology is found on tombstones as early as the ninth century. All the Hebrew manuscripts of Yemen, moreover, show the superlinear, or Babylonian, system of punctuation.

- "Yemen", Jewish Encyclopedia, 1917.

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  • Thank you for the useful response. Do your sources indicate whether the Jews of Yemen actively wrote using the Babylonian niqqud, or just preserved old manuscripts that used it? (Perhaps this is implied by the second source, but I'm not sure.)
    – user3318
    Commented Dec 6, 2013 at 17:45
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    I tried to find some information on that, but came up short. Material that I found on Yemenite printing practices (in Zion Zohar, ed. Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry) treated of secular Hebrew literature only. To the best of my limited understanding, the notation was only used with Tanakh anyway, in which sense writing would be the same as preserving.
    – Shimon bM
    Commented Dec 6, 2013 at 21:25
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    Sorry - I meant to say "Tanakh and mediaeval literature" (like Saadiah and the Rambam, etc). @Malper
    – Shimon bM
    Commented Dec 6, 2013 at 21:44
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Found my way here because I encountered Babylonian niqqud in the very important 17th-century Yemenite siddur Tiklal Mashta. In terms of capability, it's simple enough that you could easily get comfortable in an afternoon.

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