Category:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar templates

This category includes template used in Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar.

This book requires intricate formatting, even in comparison to other grammar books. However, if you have an idea on generalizing them so they can be used in other books, you are welcome to modify and re-categorize them.

Comments and suggestions are welcome. Wherever you see that this page or specific template documentation promises future improvements, feel free to propose your ideas or to make the improvements yourself.

They were created as a result of discussion here: Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2009-01#Templates for Grammar.

Citing the Bible edit

GHG is abundant at references to the Bible that appear like this: Gn 224. Always use {{GHGbible-ref}} for this.

Citing scientific works edit

GHG cites many scientific works. Currently the way to mark them is {{GHGcite}}. It is very simplistic, but it is important to use it. It shall probably be improved in the future.

Referring to pages in GHG itself edit

GHG usually refers the reader to paragraphs, but direct references to pages are also present. To refer to them use {{GHGpage}}.

Corrections and critical comments edit

GHG hasn't changed much since its publication in 1910. It has errors - some of them are listed in the Additions and Corrections page, but some are not.

Marking pages corrected edit

The scanned edition of GHG at Wikisource has a section of Additions and Corrections which were found, but not incorporated in the text. The goal is to incorporate them into the main text, but these changes should be marked to help the reader avoid the confusion about the differences between the scanned page and the digital text. Put {{GHGcorrected}} at the top of pages that were corrected. (In the future a template will be added to mark not just the page, but the corrected passage itself.)

Making your own corrections edit

Basically your own corrections should be marked with {{GHGcritic}}. But be very careful about making such corrections.

A page exists in Wikisource called Wikisource:Annotations. It is not a finalized policy and it only serves to give the editor some ideas. It basically says that adding critical comments and corrections to works in Wikisource is probably a desirable thing; however, Wikisource first and foremost represents the works as they were published, so separation between the original work and the corrections is very important.

These are the corrections and additions that are likely to be found:

  • Internal contradiction in GHG.
  • Typographical errors.
  • Wrong references.

GHG only concerns itself with Biblical Hebrew. Differences between Biblical Hebrew and that of Mishna, Piyut, Halakha and the modern state of Israel are out of its scope; not mentioning them is not an error. Writing articles or a whole grammar book about other periods of Hebrew is a neat idea, but it most probably belongs in Wikipedia or in Wikibooks and not here.

It is also possible that Gesenius and Kautzsch made actual methodological errors. If you can prove such a thing by referencing a reliable external source, add it. Finally, if a paragraph in GHG does not sufficiently cover its titular topic and a more modern work has better coverage for it, consider adding a reference to that work, but otherwise leave the GHG text as it is.

Header edit

All proofread pages at Wikisource carry a header. The information in this header is often repeated, so to simplify its adding use {{GHGheader}}.

Hebrew passages edit

Mark all Hebrew characters - even single letters - with {{GHGheb}}. This ensures proper right-to-left directionality and fonts that support vowels and cantillation marks.

Niqqud and cantillation edit

For consistency type the niqqud and cantillation in this order:

  1. Shin dot (if needed)
  2. Dagesh/Mappiq (if needed)
  3. Vowel
  4. Cantillation (if needed)

Sometimes the cantillation needs to be typed before the vowel. See an explanation at the template {{CGJ}}, which is not unique to this book, but needs to be used in some words with cantillation marks.

Placeholder for niqqud edit

Niqqud and cantillation sometimes appear without the letter. It is problematic to type it digitally, as the Unicode didn't define this and different platform display it differently. Template {{GHGvowel-holder}} was created to facilitate this, but it is far from perfect. It is suggested to use it nevertheless, if only to have an index of the pages where it is needed. (Any suggestions in this area are particularly welcome!)

Paragraphs edit

Paragraph headings edit

Mark the heading of every paragraph with {{GHGpar-heading}}.

References to paragraphs edit

Mark all references to paragraphs in GHG with {{GHGpar}}. It not only eases the typing of the paragraph sign § and makes the formatting consistent. It also creates a hyperlink to the paragraph, finally making this book what it was meant to be in the first place: a website.

Marginal letters edit

All sub-paragraphs in the printed GHG are marked with marginal letters. This is an important tool for cross-referencing. Mark the beginning of every sub-paragraph with {{GHGmargin-letter}}.

Translations edit

Mark translations from Hebrew and other languages that appear in the book with {{GHGtranslate}}. A way to mark translation to Latin and to English is being finalized.

Grammatical terms edit

Mark grammatical terms with {{GHGterm}}. A detailed policy on what to consider a "grammatical term" is not complete. In the meantime, use it on all transliterated Hebrew, Latin and English terms which appear in italics in the book.

Hard-to-type characters edit

GHG uses precise transliterations of words of foreign origin (Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic and other) and these transliterations sometimes include hard-to-type characters such as ā́ and i̯.

To ease their typing use {{GHGtranslit}}.