On the Rudiments of Hebrew

FIRST [BOOK]

...they enter the name of a word, but through their suitability they provide the application of the voice to the vocal instruments. Now you see it is true what the Stagirite philosopher The "Stagirite" refers to Aristotle, who was born in Stageira. wrote in the third volume of his book On the Heavens: an element element: the most basic, indivisible part of a substance or system is that into which other bodies are divided, being present either potentially or actually. Consequently, following the opinion of Priscian Priscian was a famous Latin grammarian from the sixth century whose work was a standard textbook in the Middle Ages and Renaissance., they called the characters by the name "elements" because when joined together they compose the spoken word like a kind of body. All the letters of the alphabet enter into syllables only through potential, but the "voices" In this context, Reuchlin refers to vowels or vowel points as "voices" because they provide the actual sound to the silent "body" of the consonants. enter by the very act and realization original: "entelechia". This is a Greek philosophical term used by Aristotle to describe the full realization of a potentiality.. It is as if the letters were colors and the points were light.

So that I do not stray entirely from the path accustomed to by the Latins, and so our people may more easily learn foreign things, I have decided to divide the Hebrew elements into two parts. We will call some "letters" and others "voices." Letters are the signs of the alphabet. Voices are the added points. Do not be surprised by these strange and unheard of things. You must be instructed in Hebrew differently than in Greek or Latin, since the speech of the Hebrews is diverse from them.

According to the opinion of Ammonius the Peripatetic Ammonius Hermiae, a fifth-century Greek philosopher who wrote influential commentaries on Aristotle. in his commentary on Aristotle's On Interpretation: since any nation uses its own words, it also adopts peculiar marks for letters. These are not natural but conventional, and they are held in place according to the custom of their own language. The same is seen most especially in that nation which, as Cicero claimed in his oration For Lucius Flaccus, was always adverse to Roman customs. This is why they even seem to write in a manner contrary to the Roman custom. For the Latins write from the left to the right, but the Jews write from the right to the left. Just as the Egyptians boast that they write more "rightly" than the Greeks according to the author Herodotus in the book titled Euterpe, so the Jews consider themselves to lead the pen toward the right. They think the Latins lead the pen toward the left, which they believe is like the haphazard throwing of stones or seeds.

There is also a convenient fact: the letters Beth, Caph, Lamed, Phe, and Quf, that is, B, C, L, P, and Q, are drawn by Latins and Jews with their shapes reversed between them. You can easily believe that in this book of Rudiments there will often be a need for foreign and unusual instructions.

ON THE LETTERS

You have heard the division of the elements, separated into two parts. The first parts consist of the letters. The points of the "voices" hold the second place. We must speak of the first parts in the prior position. Letters...