Forum

I want to create a teaching sheet with two features.
1) I would like to insert an invisible consonant character that will allow the placement of a vowel in its usual pointed place but no visible consonant above (for teaching purposes). E.g., LaMaD in Hebrew minus the L but with the remainder.

2) Similar to the above, how can I place a geometric square in place of a known letter and add a vowel underneath (for use in a quiz where the student writes in the consonant)?

When I use a Space or nbsp, the vowel alignment does not work. I am using Hebrew-TIRO but get same results with SIL or other Hebrew keyboards and SBL Hebrew font.

Mark

Would this work?
◌
DOTTED CIRCLE
Unicode: U+25CC, UTF-8: E2 97 8C

I've seen others us it this way. It's like a placeholder and the vowels should work with it (if the font you want to use has this Unicode code point).

Et cetera,

I can place the Dotted Circle unicode character in my Mellel document, but unlike the behavior with any actual Hebrew letter, the diacritics will not line up but either appear just outside the left or right border of the vertical edge of the circle as below. The closest I can come from a unicode Hebrew keyboard is Samekh or Mem sofit. I have tried a number of unicode shapes ll with the same result. Interestingly, some realignment occurs from Preview to Publish within this forum posting. Other suggestions?

◌ָ   ָ◌  םָ  סָ

Mark,

I sent a reply earlier today explaining what you just said -- for some reason it didn't get through to the forum.

Short answer: the solution depends on the font you are using, not the keyboard.

With much difficulty, I was able to force Ezra SIL to place vowels correctly under a the dotted circle.
No amount of tricks would convince SBL Hebrew to place the vowels in the right place.

However, to my surprise, both Cardo and Tahoma worked correctly and easily.
Tahoma is probably your best choice since the free version has both regular and bold faces.

None of my lovely purchased fonts contains the dotted circle glyph, so no joy there.

Janet

Janet,

I tried your suggestion with the unicode dotted circle with Ezra SIL (and SR), Tahoma, Cardo, Shlomo (a variant of Ezra?), Raanana, Arial Hebrew, New Peninim MT, and Corsiva Hebrew. I have also opened a new Mellel document with Hebrew as the first font and changed among the above fonts. The behavior is unchanged. Any vowel placed under the dotted circle in any Hebrew font lines up at the consonantal left or right edge (midway between two dotted circles). I get similar behavior in NeoOffice, Pages, and Word.

I am wondering if it involves some system setting, but I am baffled.

Mark

Sorry, sorry, there's a step I forgot to explain:

When you select the dotted circle from the Character Viewer window, you can't simply chose the "parve" 25CC glyph.

You have to select the correct Font Variation for the font you are using -- for Ezra, the Ezra variation; for SBL Hebrew, the SBL variation, and so on.
And, that means you can only use fonts that have the dotted circle glyph defined. Shlomo, Raanana, New Peninim do not have the glyph. Arial Hebrew does. I just checked -- it works fine -- but, personally, I'd still go with Tahoma.

Janet

I was looking for the answer to the exact same question which led me here. I couldn't understand the instructions on how to get this working, but actually stumbled upon the solution in the process of trial and error, and so I'm detailing it here. I am using Ezra SIL and the Biblical Hebrew - SIL keyboard.

To align a vowel properly underneath the mark base character (e.g., ◌ָ) simply type a space first and then the vowel; the mark base character will automatically be inserted over the vowel (without the need to manually type the character). Viola!

Hope that helps someone!

Darryl

Darryl,

My experience is that this sometimes works with Ezra, but never with SBL

Could you explain how you defined the space-holder character.

Janet

Hi Janet,

My experience is the same with SBL BibLit. I haven't been able to get the vowels to line up correctly in Mellel. However, oddly enough, when typing in Apple Numbers (version 3.6.1) I can manually type the space-holder character followed by a vowel and it aligns correctly underneath.

Regarding the space-holder character in Mellel using Ezra SIL, I just type a space followed by a vowel (e.g., space-bar, e) and the space-holder character is automatically inserted (without even having to define a unicode value or manual typing). However, if I type the space-holder manually, it will not align properly (like it does in Apple Numbers).

Here is a link to the PDF manual of the keyboard I'm using (refer to page 9 on how to manually type the space-holder character, "mark base"): https://www.sbl-site.org/Fonts/Biblical ... Manual.pdf

Does what I'm describing work the same for you?

Darryl

Wow, what a strange keyboard! Alef on the shift??

I touch-type using the standard Israeli keyboard layout which is what Apple offers with "Hebrew" input.
Like QWERTY, this layout was created by typewriter manufacturers way back when and is what is taught in the schools here.

Getting back to Mark's original question: I see that he has two possible solutions
1. either go with a special-purpose keyboard that has the space-saver character built-in,or
2. use a standard keyboard layout and rely on a well-behaved unicode font like Arial Hebrew, Tahoma, or Cardo.
As far as I can tell, none of the excellent commercial fonts contain the dotted-circle glyph.

Just to add a second level to the discussion . . . we've been discussing the NIKUD (vowel marks). What about TAAMIM (diacritic marks)? But then, I have never seen anyone use space-saver characters to teach these. The tradition is to teach the cantillation using the mark's name. i.e. I learn the melody for the mark REVIVI by singing the word REVIVI.

GAMAR HATIMAH TOVA to everyone.

Janet

Janet and Darryl,

Thanks much for your feedback. Arial Hebrew, Tahoma, and Cardo fonts allow the dotted circle to be placed. When adding diacritics, they either align slightly left- or right-of-center--never midline with the letter above. TAAMIM goes beyond my training thus far (but I would like resources to learn), so I remain with NIKUD questions.

The solution of typing a space then a vowel in Ezra SIL (and SR) works best. Mellel seems to treat is almost as an invisible mark but chooses to show it. I don't understand why it works, but it looks better morphologically (onscreen and on paper). גמר חתימה טובה

Mark