Greetings from England

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Moses Gummadi
Posts: 29
Joined: Mon Sep 13, 2021 10:15 am

Greetings from England

Post by Moses Gummadi »

Hello, my name is Moses. I have no academic background in Theology, Hebrew or for that matter Humanities, but I am very interested in Biblical Hebrew. I taught myself Hebrew alphabet and vowels 9 years ago and spent significant time in developing computer code and analysing the text of the Tanach for things most scholars here would have no interest (eg. acrostics and other phenomenon) besides reading the Tanach.

I have been (self) studying Biblical Hebrew grammar for sometime now, and I like to test grammar rules on my computer (eg., I found these words with dagesh in Resh - הַרְּעִמָהּ הַרְּאִיתֶם רַּב רֹּאשׁ רֵּים רָּע לְשָׁרֶּךָ מָרַּת רַּךְ שֶׁרֹּאשִׁי כָרַּת שָׁרֵּךְ ) .
Moses Gummadi
יִרְאֵי יְהוָה בִּטְחוּ בַיהוָה
Kenneth Greifer
Posts: 661
Joined: Mon Feb 09, 2015 3:05 pm

Re: Greetings from England

Post by Kenneth Greifer »

Moses,
I don't know anything about computers, so I might not even understand your answers, but I would like to ask you about what software or computer language you use for Biblical Hebrew, because the letters always reverse in word processors. I try to use Wordperfect, and the letters reverse order, unless you use certain fonts.
Kenneth Greifer
Moses Gummadi
Posts: 29
Joined: Mon Sep 13, 2021 10:15 am

Re: Greetings from England

Post by Moses Gummadi »

Kenneth, I have never used Wordperfect, but all the standard software in both Windows (eg. MS-Word, Excel, Powerpoint) as well as Mac (eg. Pages, Numbers, Keynote), work very well with Hebrew text without having to use any special fonts.

The above are of course only for editing the text. I do text analysis using "R" language. I use a tool called "RStudio". Here are a couple of snapshots of the code I write (in blue) and the results (in black) where I extract words in Tanach ending with ַיִם (patach, yod, chiriq, mem sofit).

Image

Image
Moses Gummadi
יִרְאֵי יְהוָה בִּטְחוּ בַיהוָה
Kenneth Greifer
Posts: 661
Joined: Mon Feb 09, 2015 3:05 pm

Re: Greetings from England

Post by Kenneth Greifer »

Moses,
I believe that in all of the software you mentioned like MS Word, you can type the Hebrew from right to left in most fonts, but when you publish to PDF, they come out left to right. That is my understanding.

In Wordperfect, which they still make and update all of the time, you can type it right to left also, but the PDFs are reversed. If I use Palatino font in WP, the Hebrew letters type out left to right, and the PDF's are also left to right. What I do is I type Hebrew from left to right while I am in Palatino font, so my PDFs end up looking correct in Hebrew. I was just curious because you sound like a computer expert, and I was wondering if you have ever made PDFs with Hebrew and had any problems with the letters reversing order. Thanks for taking the time to answer me.
Kenneth Greifer
Moses Gummadi
Posts: 29
Joined: Mon Sep 13, 2021 10:15 am

Re: Greetings from England

Post by Moses Gummadi »

I am able to produce PDFs with the right direction, no problem. I guess you might need some setting changes. Have a look at this link - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/off ... 7cb7cd22e2
Moses Gummadi
יִרְאֵי יְהוָה בִּטְחוּ בַיהוָה
Kenneth Greifer
Posts: 661
Joined: Mon Feb 09, 2015 3:05 pm

Re: Greetings from England

Post by Kenneth Greifer »

Moses,
Thanks. I will look into the subject more.
Kenneth Greifer
talmid56
Posts: 295
Joined: Tue Oct 01, 2013 9:02 am
Location: Carlisle, Arkansas, USA

Re: Greetings from England

Post by talmid56 »

Kenneth, are you using a Hebrew keyboard when you type Hebrew, or your standard English one with a Hebrew font?
Dewayne Dulaney
דואיין דוליני

Blog: https://letancientvoicesspeak.wordpress.com/

כִּ֤י שֶׁ֨מֶשׁ׀ וּמָגֵן֮ יְהוָ֪ה אֱלֹ֫הִ֥ים חֵ֣ן וְ֭כָבוֹד יִתֵּ֣ן יְהוָ֑ה לֹ֥א יִמְנַע־ט֝֗וֹב לַֽהֹלְכִ֥ים בְּתָמִֽים׃
--(E 84:11) 84:12 תהלים
Kenneth Greifer
Posts: 661
Joined: Mon Feb 09, 2015 3:05 pm

Re: Greetings from England

Post by Kenneth Greifer »

Dewayne,
I use the word processor, Wordperfect whatever version from a few years ago. Not too old. In it, you click on their Hebrew letters that type out right to left, but I use Palatino font, so it types left to right. I type Hebrew words in reverse order like they were English words, but in Hebrew they look correct, so when I make a PDF, it shows up correctly. If I use the Wordperfect right to left font, it shows up reversed in the PDF. I think you have to use the WP Hebrew letters in WP.
It is hard to explain. It works out nicely in WP documents and in the PDF, as long as I don't use their right to left Hebrew font. I actually saw an article that said that there are 3 fonts, including Palatino, that you can use in word processors that make the Hebrew letters become left to right instead of right to left. I forget the other fonts.
Kenneth Greifer
talmid56
Posts: 295
Joined: Tue Oct 01, 2013 9:02 am
Location: Carlisle, Arkansas, USA

Re: Greetings from England

Post by talmid56 »

you click on their Hebrew letters
Do you mean from an "Insert special character" chart (a menu in some word processors; usually found under an Insert menu)?

It could be a font issue. I suggest trying some different Hebrew fonts, ones designed specifically for Hebrew rather than an all-purpose one like Palatino. There is, for example, the SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) Hebrew font used here on the forum, and there are many others. I also like the Ezra font family for Hebrew. Ezra SIL is included in the Open SIddur font package (download link below).

Here are a some links to get some Hebrew-specific fonts.

SBL Hebrew: https://www.sbl-site.org/educational/Bi ... ebrew.aspx

Open Siddur Project (package of several Hebrew fonts; site has preview of fonts so you can see how they look):
https://opensiddur.org/help/fonts/

A web search for "free Unicode Hebrew fonts" will no doubt find many more.

Alternatively, you can probably get Arial or Times New Roman to work, even though they are not specifically for Hebrew. Arial is probably included with your Windows OS. Times New Roman should be included also. I tried Arial and Times New Roman just now and did a sample PDF with them in MS Word. They turned out a good PDF with proper RTL direction. I don't have WordPerfect, so I don't know how it would do with those two. Worth a try, though.

Hope this helps,
Dewayne
Last edited by talmid56 on Fri Sep 17, 2021 2:40 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Dewayne Dulaney
דואיין דוליני

Blog: https://letancientvoicesspeak.wordpress.com/

כִּ֤י שֶׁ֨מֶשׁ׀ וּמָגֵן֮ יְהוָ֪ה אֱלֹ֫הִ֥ים חֵ֣ן וְ֭כָבוֹד יִתֵּ֣ן יְהוָ֑ה לֹ֥א יִמְנַע־ט֝֗וֹב לַֽהֹלְכִ֥ים בְּתָמִֽים׃
--(E 84:11) 84:12 תהלים
talmid56
Posts: 295
Joined: Tue Oct 01, 2013 9:02 am
Location: Carlisle, Arkansas, USA

Re: Greetings from England

Post by talmid56 »

Typing with a virtual Hebrew keyboard makes it easier, too. Unfortunately the built-in Windows one doesn't seem to support vowel points. You can get and install the SBL or Tyndale keyboards to enable vowel typing. The SBL one is available from the fonts page (previous post). Here's a link to the download page which includes the Tyndale one: https://www.stepbible.org/downloads.jsp.

Or you can use the online one at Lexilogos (https://www.lexilogos.com/keyboard/hebrew.htm), which lets you copy from it. I tried a word just now with it and did copy + paste to a B-Hebrew reply window. It showed correctly.
Dewayne Dulaney
דואיין דוליני

Blog: https://letancientvoicesspeak.wordpress.com/

כִּ֤י שֶׁ֨מֶשׁ׀ וּמָגֵן֮ יְהוָ֪ה אֱלֹ֫הִ֥ים חֵ֣ן וְ֭כָבוֹד יִתֵּ֣ן יְהוָ֑ה לֹ֥א יִמְנַע־ט֝֗וֹב לַֽהֹלְכִ֥ים בְּתָמִֽים׃
--(E 84:11) 84:12 תהלים
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