An Early Syriac Question Mark

An Early Syriac Question MarkAramaic StudiesSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference PortalThe National Endowment for the HumanitiesThe International Balzan Prize FoundationDavid A. Michelsoncbsc_adminRecord added to Zotero bycbsc_adminSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portalhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/BA6QFFZT/tei

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2024-08-15-04:00

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CREATED: This bibl record was autogenerated from a Zotero record.James FarwellCoakleyAn Early Syriac Question Markhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/BA6QFFZThttps://www.zotero.org/groups/a_comprehensive_bibliography_on_syriac_studies/items/BA6QFFZThttps://www.zotero.org/groups/4861694/items/BA6QFFZTAramaic Studies10:22012193-213Sentence-punctuation in manuscripts of the Syriac Peshitta Bible is not well understood. One punctuation mark, however, a vertical pair of points above a letter, known as <i>zawgā ʿelāyā</i>, can be made out with some confidence: it marks yes-or-no questions. This conclusion is demonstrated from a sampling of early New Testament manuscripts in the British Library. The evidence of these manuscripts is all the more valuable because native Syriac grammarians generally lost the key to the meaning of this and other punctuation marks. It is conjectured that Syriac was the first language to use a reading sign as a question mark. Coakley, James Farwell. “An Early Syriac Question Mark.” Aramaic Studies 10:2 (2012): 193–213. James Farwell Coakley, An Early Syriac Question Mark, Aramaic Studies 10:2 (2012): 193–213.Classical SyriacSyriac languagediacriticsgrammargrammar [native]