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Well, it’s about time

Ever since support for bidirectional languages was implemented in Mozilla by me and my colleagues at IBM. and through all the improvements and bug-fixes that have been made since, one thing that we never got quite right was text with diacritics, aka nikkud, aka harakat, especially in justified text. This was a real obstacle in the way of my recommending Mozilla or Firefox to my friends, many of whom heavily use sites like Mechon Mamre that feature vocalized Hebrew.

I am happy to say that this is now fixed in trunk builds and the beta of Firefox 3 that will appear RSN. Here are some screenshots of a chapter from Mechon Mamre. Since they are in Hebrew, the “before” shots are on the right, and the “after” shots on the left. Click on the images to see full-size versions.

Linux

חבקוק חיחבקוק חי

OSX

חבקוק חיחבקוק חי

Windows

חבקוק חיחבקוק חי

2007 10 27 Simon Montagu Hebrew language and literature
Mozilla Comments (3) Permalink

The Siloam Inscription

I’m very excited to read on PaleoJudaica that the Siloam Inscription is likely to be returned to Israel for at least a limited period. There is a translation and images of the text at the English Wikipedia article, a transcription in both Ancient and Modern Hebrew characters from the Jewish Encyclopedia and a transcription and translation into Modern Hebrew at the Hebrew Wikipedia article, but as far as I know the original text is not available anywhere online in text format. Here it is:

  ????????????????????????????
?????????????????????????????????    ?????????
???????????????????????????? ?????????
?????????????????????????????????? ?????????
???????????????????????????? ????????? 
?????????????????????????????

You will need a font that supports “Phoenician” and a browser that supports Unicode 5.0 to see the text correctly

2007 09 06 Simon Montagu Hebrew language and literature
Palæohebrew Comments (3) Permalink

Riddle number 2

This one is probably also pretty easy, but it should require a little more leg work at least.

What tractate of the Mishna is this:

U+24CA

2007 07 01 Simon Montagu General Comments (4) Permalink

A Riddle

I’ve been enjoying the Kri and Ketiv games at Balashon, and also the pun quizzes at ADDeRabbi, so here’s one of my own.

Which biblical book is this:

((ק))

2007 06 26 Simon Montagu Hebrew language and literature Comments (3) Permalink

Marvellous surprise

In my email inbox this morning:

Dear Al Ha veDa

A gift Crossword subscription has been purchased for you.

Please visit http://www.guardian.co.uk/crossword to activate your subscription

Regards

Guardian Unlimited

This clearly has some connection to the fact that next Monday is my birthday, and this is absolutely and totally the best birthday present I could have wished for (though strong self-discipline will be called for if I’m going to get any work done if I have hundreds of Guardian crosswords available every time I sit down at the computer). The frustrating part is that it doesn’t name the generous person who gave me this present!!@#$!

I can narrow it down quite a lot: it has to be someone who knows that the Guardian Crossword, especially Araucaria, is one of the things I most miss about not living in the UK; it has to be someone who knows my email address; and it has to be someone who loves me enough to splash out on a birthday present for me.

I know who I think it was, and that person reads my blog, so if it was you, thank you so much!

2007 06 15 Simon Montagu General Comments (1) Permalink

My new bumper sticker

I was walking home the other day when a car passed me with a bumper sticker like this: אני דובר ארמית — I Speak Aramaic. He pulled in and parked ahead of me so I waited for him to get out and said politely צַפְרָא טָבָא, and told him that I liked the sticker, and where could I get one? He immediately pulled two more out of the car and presented them to me.

We spoke for a few minutes, and it turns out that he is a native Aramaic speaker, and that the stickers are put out by an organization that has just opened an office in the centre of Jerusalem (in Ben Yehuda Street, appropriately enough), and they are planning to start holding classes in spoken Aramaic.

My only question is, why doesn’t it say אנא מליל ארמיא?

2007 06 06 Simon Montagu Aramaic
My Life and Opinions Comments (4) Permalink

Journalistic objectivity

From the International Herald Tribune (hat-tip: Lisa Goldman):

Britain’s biggest journalists’ union, The National Union of Journalists, has criticized Israel’s “military adventures” and voted narrowly in favor of a boycott of Israeli goods…The timing of the ballot was particularly delicate since a BBC journalist, Alan Johnston, has been held for more than a month in Gaza, making the boycott call seem one-sided.

No shit.

2007 04 18 Simon Montagu General Comments Off on Journalistic objectivity Permalink

Overheard…

… in a drama mini-series on Israel’s commercial TV channel:

What browser are you using? Why don’t you use Firefox? I can download it for you in a second.

I can’t imagine hearing a reference like that on prime-time television even a year ago. I’m not sure exactly when Firefox became part of the mainstream, but I noticed it first in the reviews of Firefox 2 last autumn. The point of view of most of the articles was a comparison between IE7 and FF2 on a level playing field, and I felt that this was our real achievement. It doesn’t really matter which one got the higher rating in any particular review, or what percentage of users Firefox has reached, but some time in the last twelve months we achieved a shift in perception and stopped being a niche browser.

2007 03 10 Simon Montagu Mozilla Comments (1) Permalink

Hey, man

Things I thought about during the Megilla reading this year, in no particular order. I’m not saying I thought of all this actually during the reading, some of it is expansions of the original ideas that are coming to me as I write it down

I’m not sure if this counts as a meme. RenReb did a post with this subject last year, and Dov Bear picked it up and repeated his post this year. ADDeRabbi had a good one too which I just saw because bloglines resyndicated it.

  • Ancient Persians had really silly names. Sha`ashgaz. Karshena. Hharvona. Apart from Mordechai and Esther, which are Babylonian, the only sensible name in the whole book is Haman. Actually, Sha`ashgaz would be a rather cool name for a cat. Especially a Persian cat.
  • How did Haman come to fall on Esther’s couch? Was he prostrating himself to her (which would be a nice dramatic irony considering that the driving motive behind most of the plot is that Mordechai refused to prostrate himself to Haman) or is it a slapstick thing, that he got up to beg for mercy after one too many cups of wine and just fell over?
    Either way, the word “fall” is certainly dramatic irony (look at verse 6:13).
  • OK, so the chiastic structure of the whole book is really obvious. But what about the little chiasmi (if that is the right word)? For example, in 5:10 Haman summons his friends and his wife, and in 5:14 his wife and his friends answer him. In 6:13 he tells his wife and his friends what happened, and his wise men and his wife answer him.
  • I love the way Algerians pronounce a gimmel without dagesh, e.g. in אֲגָגִי.
  • What were the סְפָרִים in which they sent out the proclamations? Clay tablets?
  • I wonder if the Persian words in the Megilla are attested in old Persian texts. If they are, I could blog about it and put them in in Unicode Persian cuneiform and nobody without the right geeky fonts could read them. Like this: ??????? (that’s Ahasuerus’ name, assuming that Ahasuerus is Xerxes).
2007 03 05 Simon Montagu Judaism and religion
My Life and Opinions Comments (2) Permalink

Seen on a mailing list

We are often warned against over-generalization, and on mailing lists and web fora you can almost guarantee that any statement about “all” p or “the only” p, whether p is members of some ethnic group, documents in some language, or whatever, will provoke angry responses and obscure counter examples. I’ve been on both sides of this process myself, most recently here.

I just saw a sentence on the www-style mailing list which made me blink:

many authors wouldn’t bother writing web pages if they weren’t finite.

I’d love to meet the authors who would bother writing infinite web pages, though I suspect they might have trouble fitting me into their busy schedule.

The only explanation I can think of is that the author had taken the lesson “don’t overgeneralize” a little bit too much to heart.

2007 02 09 Simon Montagu General Comments Off on Seen on a mailing list Permalink

De trop

Ari Kinsberg saw a poster in Jerusalem with a picture of a bottle of Johnny Walker and the caption יְהוֹשֻׁ֙עַ֙, i.e. “Joshua” in Hebrew with cantillation.

He says:

I’m willing to bet that this is the only instance of [Hebrew with cantillation] in Israeli advertising.

I wonder just how much he is willing to bet, and would he up the stakes for an instance of Hebrew with cantillation in a phrase which isn’t even a Biblical quotation?

Update: a commenter on Ari’s blog notes that the human rights pressure group B’Tselem also use cantillation in their logo. From a marketing point of view I think I understand why they do this: they are trying to make the point, on a subliminal level, that the values that they advocate are Jewish values rooted in the Torah. The bakery I linked to originally is probably aiming for something slightly different: using a Biblical style to suggest old-time, pre-industrial, healthy values. Ari’s original poster had me puzzled for a while, but I think I’ve got it: since apparently it’s advertising a bar in Ben Sira Street, maybe they chose the name of the bar as a reference to Joshua Ben Sira, and using cantillation is a way of saying “Look! We are a bar named after an extracanonical biblical book”. (Naming your place of business as an oblique reference to your street address is not unusual in Israel: another example is Ginzberg in Ahad Ha`am Street, Tel Aviv).

2007 01 22 Simon Montagu Hebrew language and literature Comments (3) Permalink

Got some of the t-shirts

Ah, memes. The staple of the blogger with nothing to say, or not enough time to say it. This is from Something Something via Slightly Mad.

Things I’ve done are bold. Comments in italics.

  1. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
  2. Swam with wild dolphins
  3. Climbed a mountain
  4. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
  5. Been inside the Great Pyramid
  6. Held a tarantula
  7. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
  8. Said “I love you” and meant it
  9. Hugged a tree
  10. Bungee jumped
  11. Visited Paris
  12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
  13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
  14. Seen the Northern Lights
  15. Gone to a huge sports game
  16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
  17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
  18. Touched an iceberg
  19. Slept under the stars
  20. Changed a baby’s diaper
  21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
  22. Watched a meteor shower
  23. Gotten drunk on champagne
  24. Given more than you can afford to charity
  25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
  26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
  27. Had a food fight
  28. Bet on a winning horse
  29. Asked out a stranger
  30. Had a snowball fight
  31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
  32. Held a lamb
  33. Seen a total eclipse of the moon.
  34. Ridden a roller coaster
  35. Hit a home run
  36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
  37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
  38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
  39. Had two hard drives for your computer
  40. Visited all 50 states
  41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
  42. Had amazing friends
  43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
  44. Watched wild whales
  45. Stolen a sign
  46. Backpacked in Europe
  47. Taken a road-trip
  48. Gone rock climbing
  49. Midnight walk on the beach
  50. Gone sky diving
  51. Visited Ireland
  52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
  53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
  54. Visited Japan
  55. Milked a cow
  56. Alphabetized your CDs
  57. Pretended to be a superhero
  58. Sung karaoke
  59. Lounged around in bed all day
  60. Played touch football
  61. Gone scuba diving
  62. Kissed in the rain
  63. Played in the mud
  64. Played in the rain
  65. Gone to a drive-in theater
  66. Visited the Great Wall of China
  67. Started a business
  68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
  69. Toured ancient sites
  70. Taken a martial arts class
  71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
  72. Gotten married
  73. Been in a movie
  74. Crashed a party
  75. Gotten divorced
  76. Gone without food for 5 days
  77. Made cookies from scratch
  78. Won first prize in a costume contest
  79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
  80. Gotten a tattoo
  81. Rafted the Snake River
  82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
  83. Got flowers for no reason
  84. Performed on stage
  85. Been to Las Vegas if driving through it
    and not stopping counts
  86. Recorded music
  87. Eaten shark
  88. Kissed on the first date
  89. Gone to Thailand
  90. Bought a house
  91. Been in a combat zone
  92. Buried one/both of your parents
  93. Been on a cruise ship
  94. Spoken more than one language fluently
  95. Performed in Rocky Horror
  96. Raised children
  97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
  98. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
  99. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
  100. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
  101. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
  102. Had plastic surgery
  103. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
  104. Wrote articles for a large publication
  105. Lost over 100 pounds
  106. Held someone while they were having a flashback
  107. Piloted an airplane
  108. Touched a stingray
  109. Broken someone’s heart
  110. Helped an animal give birth
  111. Won money on a T.V. game show
  112. Broken a bone
  113. Gone on an African photo safari
  114. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
  115. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
  116. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
  117. Ridden a horse
  118. Had major surgery
  119. Had a snake as a pet
  120. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
  121. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
  122. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
  123. Visited all 7 continents
  124. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
  125. Eaten kangaroo meat
  126. Eaten sushi
  127. Had your picture in the newspaper
  128. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
  129. Gone back to school
  130. Parasailed
  131. Touched a cockroach
  132. Eaten fried green tomatoes
  133. Read The Iliad – and the Odyssey
  134. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
  135. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
  136. Skipped all your school reunions
  137. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
  138. Been elected to public office
  139. Written your own computer language
  140. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
  141. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
  142. Built your own PC from parts
  143. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
  144. Had a booth at a street fair
  145. Dyed your hair
  146. Been a DJ
  147. Shaved your head
  148. Caused a car accident
  149. Saved someone’s life
2006 12 12 Simon Montagu My Life and Opinions Comments Off on Got some of the t-shirts Permalink

Challa meme

Danya posted about baking challa. In the interests of Jewish pluralism, here’s my recipe. These quantities make 5 medium-sized or 4 largish challot.

  • 1 kg white flour
  • 1 tbsp salt
  • 3 or 4 threads of saffron
  • 25 g yeast
  • 1 tsp honey
  • About 500 cc. lukewarm water
  • 3 eggs, beaten
  • sesame seeds and/or poppy seeds.

Mix the flour and salt together in a large bowl and make a well in the middle.
Pour a little boiling water over the saffron, stir well and leave for a few minutes.
Stir the yeast and honey together until the yeast dissolves.
Add the lukewarm water, the saffron, and the eggs to the yeast (keeping back about 1/4 of an egg for glazing) and pour into the flour. (This is best done in two stages, otherwise you leave behind a residue of yeast). The total amount of liquid should be about 625 cc for 1kg of flour.
Fold the flour over the liquid and leave it for about 20 minutes until it starts bubbling up.
Stir the liquid into the flour and knead well for at least 5 minutes, adding more liquid or flour if necessary. The dough should be slightly sticky.
Cover with a towel and leave to rise for an hour or two.
Knock in the air, and knead it a bit more.
Divide into 4 or 5 balls, divide each one into 3, and braid them together.
Paint with the rest of the beaten egg and scatter sesame or poppy seeds over the top.
Prove for 45-60 minutes.
Bake at 220° C for 30-35 minutes.

2006 10 21 Simon Montagu General Comments (3) Permalink

Targetting civilians

Updated with links to more pictures

Here’s a picture of a road sign in Haifa after a Katyusha missile landed nearby.

The metal road sign has been pierced by dozens of pellets
Photo credit: Lenny Maschkowski

The text on the sign says “Slow — Children Crossing”. To see more pictures from Haifa by Lenny Maschkowski, go here or here, or the slideshows linked from the bottom of this page.

Hat-tip: Treppenwitz

2006 08 10 Simon Montagu General Comments Off on Targetting civilians Permalink

The One Book Meme

I don’t tag, but I like memes. I saw this one at Codex.

  1. One book that changed your life:
    We Have Reason To Believe by the late Rabbi Louis Jacobs.
  2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
    Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome.
  3. One book that you’d want on a desert island:
    Midrash Tanhhuma.
  4. One book that made you laugh:
    My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell.
  5. One book that made you cry:
    Tunnel in the Sky by Robert Heinlein.
  6. One book that you wish had been written:
    A sequel to The Promise by Chaim Potok in which Danny makes aliya to Israel. I was at a screening of The Chosen where Potok spoke, and he hinted that he was working on this, but I might have misinterpreted him.
  7. One book that you wish had never been written:
    The Da Vinci Code
  8. One book you’re currently reading:
    Blue at the Mizzen by Patrick O’Brian
  9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
    Stephen King On Writing
2006 07 27 Simon Montagu Books Comments (2) Permalink

סוף הדרך

One student at Ben Gurion University to another, discussing Nasrallah:

هو بيحكي عريي חבל על הזמן

Hat-tip: Kishkushim.

2006 07 25 Simon Montagu General Comments Off on סוף הדרך Permalink

Unintentional Reminiscences I

Susan in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe:

Peter, just because some man in a red coat gives you a sword it doesn’t make you a hero!

Dennis in Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony…you can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you…I mean, if I went round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they’d put me away

2006 05 13 Simon Montagu General Comments Off on Unintentional Reminiscences I Permalink

תעלא דינורא

I was saying yesterday that it’s a pity that there’s no localisation of Firefox into Aramaic. I wasn’t very serious, because I didn’t think there would be many people who would use it, but it turns out there’s at least one potential client: Monica Bellucci.

Monica … can speak Italian, French, English and Aramaic fluently.

Who knew?

(Hat tip: Jim Davila)

2006 05 12 Simon Montagu Aramaic
Mozilla Comments Off on תעלא דינורא Permalink

Yossi Banai 1932-2006

In memory of Yossi Banai, who died today, here is one of his less well-known songs which I’ve always been attached to. It’s very minimal, not much more than a list, but it beautifully conveys some of the paradoxes of life in this country. For example, here’s a rough translation of the last verse:

A land of dreams and purchase tax
A land of peace and taxi ranks
A land of visions from above
Halleluiah, the land we love.

אֶרֶץ מְשַׁגַּעַת
מִילִים: יוֹסִי בַּנָּאי
לַחַן: יָאִיר רוֹזֶנְבְלוּם

אֶרֶץ יָפָה, תַּשְׁדִיר שֵׁירוּת
שֶׁמֶשׁ טוֹבָה, חֵפֶץ חָשׁוּד
יָם וְחוֹלוֹת, גְּבוּל בִּטָּחוֹן
וּתוֹכְנִיוֹת לְחִסָּכוֹן

אֶרֶץ יָפָה, אוּלְפַּן עוֹלִים
עִבְרִית שָׂפָה קָשָׁה לְמַתְחִילִים
תְּלוּשׁ נִיכּוּיִים, הוֹד וְהָדָר
אוֹר לַגּוֹיִים, יַלְלָה בֵּיתָר

זֶה שִׁיר מְשׁוּגַּע עַל אֶרֶץ שֶמְּשַגַּעַת
בְּחַמּוּדוֹתֶיהָ אֶת כָּל הַסְּבִיבָה
זָה שִׁיר מְשׁוּגַּע עַל אֶרֶץ שֶׁיּוֹדַעַת
שֶעִם כָּל שִגְעוֹנוֹתֶיהָ אֵין עוֹד אֶרֶץ מִלְּבָדֶיהָ
אֶרֶץ יָפָה

אֶרֶץ יָפָה וּמִסְתּוֹרִית
גַּם חֲבִיבִה גַּם מַמְזֵרִית
קֶבֶר קָדוֹשׁ, שְנֵי תַיָּירִים
וּכְאֵב ראשׁ, שְבִיתוֹת מוֹרִים

אֶרֶץ נִיסִים וְהַפְגָנוֹת
מִיץ תַּפּוּזִים, חוֹק הֲפָלוֹת
דִיסְקוֹ תֲנָ”ךְ, טַנְגּוֹ שָׁלוֹם
רַעַם תּוֹתָח, פְּסוּקוֹ שֶׁל יוֹם

זֶה שִׁיר מְשׁוּגַּע …

אֶרֶץ חוֹבוֹת וְשִׁילוּמִים
אֶלֶף שָׂפוֹת וּלְאוּמִים
יַלְדָּה יָפָה, אָבִיב קָצָר
מִילָה טוֹבָה שֶׁל שַׂר אוֹצָר

אֶרֶץ חֲלוֹם וּמַס קְנִיָה
אֶרֶץ שָׁלוֹם בְּלִי חֲנִיָה
אֶרֶץ חֲזוֹן בְּכָל שְׁנִיָה
אֶרֶץ צִיּוֹן הֲלְלוּיָהּ.

זֶה שִׁיר מְשׁוּגַּע ..

2006 05 11 Simon Montagu Hebrew language and literature Comments (4) Permalink

Asterix the Linguist

The year is 50 BC. All Gaul is occupied by the Romans. All? No! One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders…

A lot of the charm of the Asterix series by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo comes from the way satirical projections of modern life (e.g. chariots on dual carriageways with service stations staffed by the Michelin man or the Rugby game in Asterix and Britain) are combined with very accurate and carefully drawn reconstructions of the first century B.C.E. For example compare this illustration of Olympia from Asterix and the Olympic Games with this reconstruction.

View of Olympia

However, occasionally they make a slip. In Asterix and the Black Gold a few pages after a similar aerial view of Jerusalem closely based on the model at the Holyland Hotel, we see Asterix and Obelix walking out of the mediæval Lion Gate. And what does the sign on this Phoenician ship in Asterix the Gladiator say?

Phoenician ship

I only recently noticed that and realized that the sign is intended as Phoenician script. Here is a closeup from another panel:

Sign on Phoenician ship

The letters are rosh, yod, tau, or in Hebrew transcription רית. (Phoenician is not yet encoded in Unicode, but according to the current beta of Unicode 5.0, they will soon be ???).

Since the ship comes from Tyre, I am guessing that the authors intended the sign to be the name of its home port, and tried to transcribe “Tyre” into Phoenician, from left to right. In fact, the Phoenician for Tyre is צור or צר (‎?? in Unicode 5.0), and should appear something like Tyre in Phoenician

2006 04 25 Simon Montagu Books Comments Off on Asterix the Linguist Permalink