Tiberian Hebrew

Tiberian Hebrew is the canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh and related documents. This traditional medieval pronunciation dating back to at least Second Temple times was committed to writing by Masoretic scholars based in the Jewish community of Tiberias c. 750-950 CE, in the form of the Tiberian vocalization. This written form employed diacritics added to the Hebrew letters: vowel signs and consonant diacritics (nequdot) and the so-called accents (two related systems of cantillation signs or te'amim), which together with the marginal notes (masora magna and masora parva) make up the Tiberian apparatus. (Though the written vowels and accents only came into use ca. 750 CE, the oral tradition they reflect is many centuries older, with ancient roots.) Although not in common use today, the Tiberian pronunciation of Hebrew is considered by textual scholars to be the most exact and proper pronunciation of the language as it preserves all of the original Semitic consonantal and vowel sounds of Ancient Hebrew.