Precise Phonetic Transcription of Hebrew Since the 10 th Century

As early as the 10 th century, the Tiberian Masoretes succeeded in developing a notation system that accurately reflected the traditional Bible reading of the people of Tiberias. They determined the canonical authoritative text and incorporated vowels and cantillation marks to guide readers to achieve precise pronunciation: Letters and vowels represented consonants and vowels, and cantillation marks indicated stressed syllables and syntactic connections between words. The Masoretes succeeded in creating a system equivalent to an “audio recording” of the reading of the Bible as it was pronounced in their era and location. With the writings of the Tiberian Masoretes that survived to our times, along with the preserved text of the Bible, we can reconstruct phonetically the exact pronunciation of the Bible reading as it was in the 10 th century and convert the Tiberian text into modern phonetic transcription. In this article, we will gradually reconstruct their methods of recitation.