Medieval Hebrew and Syriac scribes both indicated vowels by placing dots above or below their consonantal writing. These vowel points were created in the Late Antique and early Islamic periods to disambiguate the vocalization of important texts, especially the Bible. The earliest step in this process was the implementation of the Syriac ‘diacritic…[Read more]

Dawid bar Pawlos’ Letter on Dots is an eighth-century text that purportedly describes the introduction of some of the dots used in Syriac writing. It also sheds light on the life of a certain Rāmišoʿ of Beṯ Rabban, apparently the same man as the master of pointing named in MS BL Add. 12138. However, most studies of Syriac dots either neglec…[Read more]

Judaeo-Arabic manuscripts with complete vocalisation are rare, a problem which makes reconstructing the pronunciation of the medieval language challenging. This study presents an edition of a Judaeo-Arabic translation of Ecclesiastes from the Cairo Genizah with full Tiberian vocalisation. This manuscript exhibits noteworthy features of dialectal…[Read more]

This article presents new data on links between the various medieval vocalisation traditions of Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic. These include the identification of overlaps in the Aramaic terminology used by Jewish Masoretes and Syriac Christian grammarians and in the phonological theories that underlie them, as well as connections between Syriac and…[Read more]

MS T-S Ar.5.58 is a translation glossary from the Cairo Geniza that contains a list of Judaeo-Arabic glosses for Hebrew words from the biblical book of Samuel. These Arabic words are fully vocalised with the Tiberian Hebrew pointing system, providing more precise phonetic information about the scribe’s native Arabic dialect than could be e…[Read more]

En la década de 1990, el concepto ‘intermedialidad’ puso en contacto distintas disciplinas académicas (estudios literarios, estudios mediáticos, sociología, estudios cinematográficos e historia del arte) desde la intención por encarar y mejor comprender el ambiente cultural visual/escrito/auditivo que caracterizó los comienzos del siglo XX. Conect…[Read more]

Discusses the fragmentary poem Inna hinada at the end of Lebor na hUidre

Book review

Peter Shoeffer’s book-list is usually dated to the year 1470. The author challenges this dating, however, supplying a detailed analysis of the content of the list and suggested when it was printed and under what circumstances.

This essay considers two closely related high-profile urban renewal projects that have altered the landscape of the southern region of Madrid since 2007: Madrid Río and El Matadero Madrid Centro de Creación Contemporánea. While the former is often cast as renovating the ‘natural’ ecology of the city and the latter a renovation of its cultural la…[Read more]

Francesca Romana

Jordanes’ Romana