ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N2692
2003-12-11
Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set
International Organization for Standardization
Organisation Internationale de Normalisationеждународная организация по стандартизации
Doc Type: Working Group Document
Title:
Proposal to add ATNAH HAFUKH to the BMP of the UCS
Source: Mark Shoulson, Peter Kirk, and Michael Everson
Status:Individual Contribution
Action:For consideration by JTC1/SC2/WG2 and UTC
Date:
2003-12-11
This document requests an additional character to be added to the UCS and contains the proposalsummary form.

A. Administrative
1. Title
Proposal to add ATNAH HAFUKH to the BMP of the UCS.
2. Requester’s nameMark Shoulson, Peter Kirk, and Michael Everson
3. Requester type (Member body/Liaison/Individual contribution)
Individual contribution.
4. Submission date2003-12-11
5. Requester’s reference (if applicable)
6. Choose one of the following:
6a. This is a complete proposal
Yes.
6b. More information will be provided later
No.

B. Technical – General
1. Choose one of the following:
1a. This proposal is for a new script (set of characters)
No.
Proposed name of script
1b. The proposal is for addition of character(s) to an existing blockYes.
1b. Name of the existing block
Hebrew
2. Number of characters in proposal
1
3. Proposed category (see section II, Character Categories)
Category B.1
4a. Proposed Level of Implementation (1, 2 or 3) (see clause 14, ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000)
Level 3.
4b. Is a rationale provided for the choice?
Yes.
4c. If YES, reference
Combining character.
5a. Is a repertoire including character names provided?
Yes.
5b. If YES, are the names in accordance with the character naming guidelines in Annex L of ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000?
Yes.

15c. Are the character shapes attached in a legible form suitable for review?
Yes.
6a. Who will provide the appropriate computerized font (ordered preference: True Type, or PostScript format) for
publishing the standard?
Michael Everson. TrueType.
6b. If available now, identify source(s) for the font (include address, e-mail, ftp-site, etc.) and indicate the tools used:
Michael Everson. Fontographer.
7a. Are references (to other character sets, dictionaries, descriptive texts etc.) provided?
Yes, see bibliography below.
7b. Are published examples of use (such as samples from newspapers, magazines, or other sources) of proposedcharacters attached?
Yes.
8. Does the proposal address other aspects of character data processing (if applicable) such as input, presentation,sorting, searching, indexing, transliteration etc. (if yes please enclose information)?
Yes, see below.
9. Submitters are invited to provide any additional information about Properties of the proposed Character(s) or
Script that will assist in correct understanding of and correct linguistic processing of the proposed character(s) or
script. Examples of such properties are: Casing information, Numeric information, Currency information, Displaybehaviour information such as line breaks, widths etc., Combining behaviour, Spacing behaviour, Directionalbehaviour, Default Collation behaviour, relevance in Mark Up contexts, Compatibility equivalence and other Unicode
normalization related information. See the Unicode standard at http://www.unicode.org for such information on otherscripts.
AlsoseeUnicode
Character
Database
http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/
UnicodeCharacterDatabase.html and associated Unicode Technical Reports for information needed for considerationby the Unicode Technical Committee for inclusion in the Unicode Standard.
Yes, see Unicode properties below.

C. Technical – Justification
1. Has this proposal for addition of character(s) been submitted before? If YES, explain.
No.
2a. Has contact been made to members of the user community (for example: National Body, user groups of the scriptor characters, other experts, etc.)?
Yes.
2b. If YES, with whom?
Professor Aron Dotan, script expert
2c. If YES, available relevant documents
3. Information on the user community for the proposed characters (for example: size, demographics, information
technology use, or publishing use) is included?
Yes.
4a. The context of use for the proposed characters (type of use; common or rare)
Scholarly and ritual use.
4b. Reference
See examples below.
5a. Are the proposed characters in current use by the user community?
Yes.
5b. If YES, where?
See examples below.
6a. After giving due considerations to the principles in Principles and Procedures document (a WG 2 standingdocument) must the proposed characters be entirely in the BMP?
Yes.
6b. If YES, is a rationale provided?
Yes.
6c. If YES, reference
All Hebrew cantillation marks are in the BMP.
7. Should the proposed characters be kept together in a contiguous range (rather than being scattered)?
N/A.
8a. Can any of the proposed characters be considered a presentation form of an existing character or character sequence?
No.
8b. If YES, is a rationale for its inclusion provided?
8c. If YES, reference29a. Can any of the proposed characters be encoded using a composed character sequence of either existing charactersor other proposed characters?
No.
9b. If YES, is a rationale for its inclusion provided?
9c. If YES, reference
10a. Can any of the proposed character(s) be considered to be similar (in appearance or function) to an existing
character?
No.
10b. If YES, is a rationale for its inclusion provided?
10c. If YES, reference
11a. Does the proposal include use of combining characters and/or use of composite sequences (see clauses 4.12 and4.14 in ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000)?
Yes.
11b. If YES, is a rationale for such use provided?
No.
11c. If YES, reference
12a. Is a list of composite sequences and their corresponding glyph images (graphic symbols) provided?
No.
12b. If YES, reference
13a. Does the proposal contain characters with any special properties such as control function or similar semantics?
No.
13b. If YES, describe in detail (include attachment if necessary)
14a. Does the proposal contain any Ideographic compatibility character(s)?
No.
14b. If YES, is the equivalent corresponding unified ideographic character(s) identified?
14c. If YES, reference

D. Proposal
The Hebrew Bible is traditionally annotated with cantillations or accents, which indicate a melody forchanting the text and also serve to mark syntactic units. Two distinct systems are used in the text (though
they clearly influence one another): one (sometimes called the “Poetic System”) in the “3 Books” (Job,Proverbs, and Psalms), and one (the “Prose System”) in the remaining 21 Books of the Hebrew Bible, astraditionally divided. One of the cantillation accents in use in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible,
U+05AA HEBREW ACCENT YERAH BEN YOMO, occurs rarely in the Prose system, serving as a connecting
accent before U+059F HEBREW ACCENT QARNEY PARA (which is also called pazer gadol or ‘great pazer’).
It occurs rather more frequently in the Poetic System, where it appears before U+05A1 HEBREW ACCENT
PAZER and also before the accent ole v’yored (a composite accent, consisting of U+05AB HEBREW ACCENT
OLE and U+05A5 HEBREW ACCENT MERKHA). Both uses of this accent (before qarney para/pazer andbefore ole v’yored) have been printed with the same glyph for the last few centuries, which is why they
had been unified. But research of the past few decades has revealed that in fact they are not the sameaccent, and some scholars and printers have recognized that they must make the distinction explicit.
Examination of ancient Bible manuscripts and early printed editions shows that the accent used before
both pazers (i.e. U+059F HEBREW ACCENT QARNEY PARA, the great pazer in the Prose System, andU+05A1 HEBREW ACCENT PAZER, the lesser pazer, which occurs in both systems but is accompanied by
the accent under discussion only in the Poetic System) is distinct from the accent used before ole-v’yored.
For example, in the Leningrad Codex, scans of which are attached, the accent used before both pazers
was written with a rounded glyph, like the bottom three-fourths of a circle (which matches the names
used: galgal ‘wheel’ and yerah ben yomo ‘day-old moon’). However, the accent used in the Poetic
System in conjunction with the ole-v’yored was written with a pointed glyph, like a small letter “v”, or an
inverted form of U+0591 HEBREW ACCENT ETNAHTA as written in those manuscripts.
We therefore suggest that the sample glyph for U+05AA HEBREW ACCENT YERAH BEN YOMO be changed toa stemless simple curved form, and the proposed HEBREW ACCENT ATNAH HAFUKH be given either theglyph currently used for U+05AA or a “v”-shaped glyph. This distinction was noticed by Yisrael Yeivin,who named the accent before the ole v’yored “atnah hafukh” or “inverted etnahta”, after its form. It is3

now in use in several printed works (see examples below), including the Bible used by the Israeli
Defense Forces, edited by Aron Dotan, and the “Simanim” publication of the book of Psalms.
05AA05A2¶
ßHEBREW ACCENT YERAH BEN YOMO (glyph change)
HEBREW ACCENT ATNAH HAFUKHUnicode Character Properties
05A2;HEBREW ACCENT ATNAH HAFUKH;Mn;220;NSM;;;;;N;;*;;;

Bibliography
Breuer, M., ˇ”ˆÈ Ú˝˙¯ÍÓ ÛÚ˝˙¯ È”ÙÍ È˝¸ˆÌ Úˆ˘Ò, Horev Press, Jerusalem, 1989.
Dotan, Aron, ed., ıÈ˝˛Úı Ì˜ÎÌ¯ÈÍ˚ ÚıÚÚı ÛÚÍÓˇÙ ÛÚÈÚÍ˜ Ì˝Óˇ, 1982.
Riahi, S. M., ed., “ÛÚ˜ˆÚ¯” ÛÚıÌˇ ˝˙¯, Feldheim Press, Jerusalem, 2001.

FiguresWe will begin with some examples of modern texts which distinguish the two cantillations.

Figure 1. From the IDF Bible (Psalms 5:10-13), edited by Aron Dotan. In this picture and those that
follow, instances of U+05AA HEBREW ACCENT YERAH BEN YOMO (i.e. the accent before pazer) will becircled in red and pointed to with a plain arrow, and instances of the proposed HEBREW ACCENT ATNAHHAFUKH will be circled in blue and pointed to with a feathered arrow.

Figure 2. From the “Simanim” Psalms.

4Figure 3. From the same book, part of a list of the cantillations and their forms and names. Note the twodifferent forms given for the galgal. The sentence marked with the asterisk reads: ‘This form of galgal
will appear only before a pazer.’

Figure 4. From the “Rabbinic Bible”, printed in 1524-1525 CE. Here the sources cited are a little lessmodern. Note that the YERAH BEN YOMO has a symbol rather different from any we have seen so far (looksa little like a C), while the ATNAH HAFUKH is definitely distinct from it, with an upside-down ETNAHTA
form.

Figure 5. Some examples from the Leningrad Codex. Note the distinction made in the glyphs. Theleftmost example is from Numbers, showing that the rounded form is the one used in the “21 Books”.

5Figure 6. A larger example from the Leningrad Codex, showing several examples of both marks, allclearly distinct.

Figure 7. An example from the Aleppo Codex, showing both forms.

Figure 8. Another example from the Aleppo Codex, this one from 2 Samuel, demonstrating that theYERAH BEN YOMO in the “21 Books” is in fact the rounded form.

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