Biblical Hebrew Technical Question - Dictionary Order

[Michael C. Bell]

I've been searching for an authoritative answer to a problem that I've encountered...
What is the accepted Dictionary Alphabetic order for the Nikkud (vowel pointings) in hebrew?
I understand the Aleph, Bet, Gimmel order. That's pretty straight forward... but with hebrew words of the same consonantal form but different vowel pointings, which would come first? Would the A-Class Vowels come first, in the order of Short, Long, Unchangeable Long, Reduced? (Pathach, Qamets, Qamets He, Hateph Pathach?).
Is the Sheva included in the overall order? How about the Dagesh?
I have searched for an authority on this, but unfortunately I've yet to find anything. It's probably on a Israel University site, which unfortunately, I am not sufficient in the language to read.
Any help in locating the answer would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Neal of Zebulun]

Gesenius Hebrew Grammar lists them out by the vowel letters as found in the Latin alphabet: see here.

I don't think there is a formally accepted order, although people surely have their preferences.

Lexicographically speaking, it may be easier to go in the order of the unicode if you're programmatically working with them.

I actually would like to have a solution to this puzzle myself, let me know if you come up with something useful. Don't forget the rafe...oh man...

 

[Michael C. Bell]

I've noticed that published lexicons pretty much go their own direction when it comes to this particular problem. I thought it might be head-butting between different publishing houses, or out-dated protocols in the older publications. Strong's is even questionable! I know that modern hebrew ignores the nikkud in pretty much all forms, but SOMEONE... SOMEWHERE... must have addressed this subject?! Biblical hebrew, as a university language subject, is a cafeteria subject. By that, I mean, depending upon the institution and instructor, they pick and choose different aspects to teach the same subject... differently!
From names and spelling of the names of the Consonants and how they are pronounced, to how syllables are determined and counted! If things of this nature are so flexible, I guess that asking for a hard and fast answer to THIS question (Dictionary Order) is going to be an exercise in frustration. (But I'm a glutton for punishment!).
I've already determined that everything in my Tutor Program will be customizable to allow the user to be able to use the conventions they are comfortable with. Preference things like: Do you want to call it an ALEPH or ALEF, would you like the transliteration of the TAV without a dagesh shown as a 't' with a dot below? or as 'th'. Little things like that could allow university instructor to use this as a resource AND still follow their personal conventions.
Maybe I need to allow the user to set their own 'Dictionary Order' too... but even the thought makes me tired.

 

[Michael C. Bell]

Just as a follow-up to the last comment, let me say that even Gesenius commented that his notes had been 'severely criticized'! (If HE was criticized.. I'm doomed!).
Also, I realize that the Masoretes probably never even thought that their work would be the foundation for the numerous academic works which have followed, but I wish they had made a determination in this area. Probably they did, but I can imagine the debate which followed would have been epic!
When it comes to UNICODE order... Yikes!
On a side note: If you're interested, check out BabelMap. It's a wonderful little tool that's so helpful with unicode!

All that aside, Thank you for the suggestions. I'm already a huge fan of the forum! God Bless!

 

[drjean]

 

[Neal of Zebulun]

Another way to order them is aleph-betically by their Hebrew names (see 8d and 8e here.)

So

פתח ־ַ‎​

goes before

קמץ ־ָ​

etc.

Praise Yahweh!