Unicode/XML Leningrad Codex - Transcription notes

[cvkimball]

The WLC 4.20 text contains 1008 transcription notes of 22 types. See

https://tanach.us/Supplements/Notes.xml

for a list of these notes. (On 17 March 2003, the WLC (wlc43_ps.txt) text had 916 notes of 13 types.) Because each note is represented by a single alphanumeric character a note description can not be very detailed. For example, note type n indicates an anomalous text without indicating why the text is anomalous. Some text sections, i.e. Judges 9:2, have as many as 4 notes appended to a single word. The note sequences "Q n p" and "Q n c" occur many times on other words.

Of the 22 current note types, 14 note types relate the text to the respected and proprietary Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) and Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ) of the German Bible Society. By the very nature of transcription notes, these comments are very general.

The Groves Center has decided that transcription notes will be proprietary in future versions of the WLC and has imposed publication constraints on them incompatible with the tanach.us site. Hence, future versions of the site would have an incomplete set of WLC notes and would lack any added notes.

For consistency and to avoid intellectual property conflicts, I am considering removing all but 7 types of transcription notes which directly describe the text: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, F, M . They correspond to just 40 transcription notes in the entire text; 21 of which (5, 6, 7, 8) have invisible note values.

A modern solution to noting text is to incorporate invisible hyperlinks into a slightly-visible, fixed note symbol (i.e. a MASORA CIRCLE, x05AF). Clicking on the note symbol activates a link to a page specific to the noted text. This would be easy to implement and viewers could suggest notes as well as changes to the text. Choosing which notes to publish would be a formidable task, however!

Your ideas would be appreciated.

Chris Kimball
West Redding, CT 06896
USA