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Biblical Hebrew

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I've been working on it for a while and I'd like some feedback; hopefully it can become a Good Article eventually. I have neglected the grammar section somewhat, so treat it as a work in progress.

Thanks, Mo-Al (talk) 00:47, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by H1nkles

I will take a look at the article through the lens of the GA Criteria. Keep in mind that I am not a linguist so I can't speak to the details of the content. I will look at the writing with the understanding that the grammar of the article is a work in progress. This is a massive article so it will take some time to go through.

Lead

  • See WP:LEAD for lead requirements. The lead should be a summary of the entire article, with all the points in the body of the article summarized. I would expect to see a 3 to 4 paragraph lead for an article of this length. The lead will need to be expanded to meet this requirement of the Manual of Style.
done Mo-Al (talk) 02:01, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is there a Free Use image that can be put into the lead? Perhaps one of the images in the body of the article. This helps catch the eye of the reader.
done Mo-Al (talk) 22:31, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Abbreviations like VSO need to be spelled out initially. Linking isn't enough, spelling them out with the abbreviation in parentheses is important.
done Mo-Al (talk) 19:06, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here's something that seems ticky tack but could be brought up at GA candidacy, and will certainly be brought up at FA candidacy (if you choose to go that far; you need to add non breaking spaces to every date follwed by BCE/CE. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Non-breaking spaces for reasons why. Given the size of this article it will take some work but if you have high aspirations for this article you will need to do it at some point.
done Mo-Al (talk) 04:16, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nomenclature

  • Regarding Biblical references you're going to need to spell out the first use of the specific book. We can't expect novice readers to know that Is 19:18 is Isaiah 19:18, or that 2 Kgs is 2 Kings. This isn't a hard and fast rule but I think we need to be sensitive to those readers who are not readily familiar with abbreviations of Biblical books.
done Mo-Al (talk) 21:55, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think references to Medieval need to be capitalized. Check me on this but I know it's a proper noun.
'Capitalization. "Middle Ages" is capitalized, but "medieval" is not.' see [1] Mo-Al (talk) 21:09, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your writing in this section, especially the last paragraph, is very vague. Use of terms like "may" and "sometimes" gives the sense that either there is more to the story or there is a scholarly debate on the issue or you as the editor aren't confident in the information. If it is either of the first two then the issues should be spelled out in summary style here. If it is the last issue then the information should be confirmed or removed.
done Mo-Al (talk) 21:13, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The image in this section refers to Apiru Hieroglyphs yet in the section there is no reference to Apiru. There is Ḫapiru, is this the same thing? If so I'd change Apiru into Ḫapiru in the image.
done Mo-Al (talk) 19:11, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

History

  • One sentence paragraphs are frowned upon. Consider expanding or combining with other paras.
done Mo-Al (talk) 22:26, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Watch duplicative linking. See WP:LINK for thoughts on linking. Link a word or term once in the lead and once, perhaps twice in an article, that's fine. You link Tiberian vocalization twice in two successive sections. I removed the link in this section. Look out for this throughout the article.
  • Consider explaining some of the more technical linguistic terms. Some of the writing thus far relies on jargon, which is to be avoided when possible. Defining terms like "consonantal" and "cantillation" will help the non-experts (like myself) who read the article.
  • Here is a prose issue: "The Biblical Hebrew language evolved into Roman Era Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew, which was influenced by Greek, Persian and Aramaic, which was the Lingua franca of the area at the time." Two "which"es is not good prose as it creates a sentence with two subjects. Consider ending the sentence after "Aramaic". The portion about lingua franca needs to be better defined. What was the lingua franca of the time? The context of the sentence isn't clear, is it Aramaic, Greek or Persian? I thought Latin was the lingua franca of the Roman Empire, though again I'm no expert here.
done Mo-Al (talk) 22:04, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "...even though Modern Hebrew would have been unintelligible to Biblical Hebrew speakers." This isn't really a necessary piece of information.
done Mo-Al (talk) 22:04, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your history deals focuses solely on Judah, what about Israel and the Assyrian exile? Did this play a part in the history? Is there archeological evidence of Biblical Hebrew in the old Assyrian empire?
done Mo-Al (talk) 22:27, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Classification

  • Consider using {{main}} and {{see also}} templates to direct readers to more thorough articles on the various sections in your article.
doneMo-Al (talk) 02:18, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can't say much more here as the section is pretty technical. You may want to seek review comments on the more technical portions of the article from the Language WikiProject. Someone there would be better able to wade through the information and give you good feedback on your writing, clarity, and comprehensiveness.

Era

  • Another one-sentence paragraph please expand or combine.
done Mo-Al (talk) 17:12, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • You need a close parentheses in the second paragraph.
done Mo-Al (talk) 22:04, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why is "Writings" capitalized in the second paragraph?
done Mo-Al (talk) 22:04, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Watch out for redundant information. You date Archaic Biblical Hebrew twice in this section, once is sufficient.
done Mo-Al (talk) 17:12, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Check for consistency in your useage of BC vs BCE, I found a BC in the third paragraph in this section.
done Mo-Al (talk) 19:19, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • You linked artifacts to documents. It isn't necessary to link words in common English usage. If artifacts refers to something specific that has an article in WP, then link to that specific article. I removed the link.
  • There is a prose issue with this sentence, "The oldest known artifacts of Archaic Biblical Hebrew are various biblical accounts from the Hebrew Bible Tanakh, including the Song of Moses (Exodus 15) and the Song of Deborah (Judges 5)." "...various biblical accounts from the Hebrew Bible..." Duplicative wording, remove the first biblical and you're good to go.
done Mo-Al (talk) 19:13, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • You discuss both Archaic Biblical Hebrew and Late Biblical Hebrew in some detail but leave out Standard Biblical Hebrew. Is there a reason for this?
done Mo-Al (talk) 17:26, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The last paragraph in this section should be better sourced.

Dialects

  • Another one-sentence paragraph.
done Mo-Al (talk) 04:09, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sourcing towards the end of this section is also light and should be augmented.
done Mo-Al (talk) 17:42, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Formatting of in-line citation 34 is not right, I'm not sure what is wrong but the bracket seems misplaced.
  • When talking about Northern and Southern dialects make sure to identify what you're talking about, in that I think you're referring to the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (Judah). For clarity sake it would be good to specify that in this section.
done Mo-Al (talk) 17:19, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Orthography

  • See WP:LIST. Embedded lists within an article are ok as long as they are used very sparingly. I count 7 lists (including the list in the Syntax subsection) in this article. Check out the Manual of Style (MOS) on this subject and see if you can trim down the number of lists in the article.
  • The list in this section has a column called "Phonetic Value (Tiberian)", which is blank. Does it need to be included? If so what is its purpose? Same question for the Samaritan column.
done. But the Samaritan column is not blank; it contains the letters in the Samaritan Hebrew alphabet. Mo-Al (talk) 22:34, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Measurements should be in both metric and imperial forms (cm and inch). You can use the {{convert}} template if you like.
done Mo-Al (talk) 04:10, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The Israelite tribes who settled in the land of Israel adopted the Phoenician script script..." Two "scripts" in a row.
done Mo-Al (talk) 22:38, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "a curving to the left of the dowstrokes in the 'long-legged' letter-signs... the consistent use of a Waw with a concave top[, and a] x-shaped Taw." The brakets seems misplaced in this quote.
done Mo-Al (talk) 22:38, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Watch for consistency with capitalizing the various words for Bible. Sometimes they're capitalized other times they're not. They should all be capitalized.
done Mo-Al (talk) 19:06, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • This section seems quite long, can some of the information be summarized or split off into a separate article?
done Mo-Al (talk) 04:48, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Right around in-line citation 60 the formatting becomes garbled. Lines are broken, spacing is off, Hebrew symbols are floating with no connection to the sentence. I'm sure this has to do with the large use of Hebrew characters. This could be my browser and if it is then so be it, but you may want to take a look at this portion of the section.
  • There's another one sentence paragraph in this section.
done Mo-Al (talk) 04:48, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • You link Samson in this section, which leads to the article on the Hebrew Judge, which doesn't seem to fit in the context of the section.
done Mo-Al (talk) 22:38, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cantillation is linked here but not linked earlier. The first mention of the term should be linked and other times the term is used should not be linked.

Phonology

  • Use colors carefully in articles. Per WP:ACCESS we need to consider our color blind readers who may not be able to differentiate between colors.
  • Can any of these short paragraphs be combined? The flow seems choppy and inconsistent with the rest of the article. I can't speak to the content so I don't know if they can.
  • I see a [citation needed] template in the Vowels subsection, this needs to be addressed.
done Mo-Al (talk) 19:19, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Grammar

  • In-line citation 137 is listed twice in a row, why?
  • There's a paragraph in this section with no citations, I've added a [citation needed] template to identify it.
done Mo-Al (talk) 01:10, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • This section and the Phonology section could use expert review for content and flow. I'm just not qualified to speak on those terms.
  • Watch placement of in-line citations. Try to put them at the end of the sentences wherever possible. See "The plain, jussive, and cohortative verb prefix-endings were distinguished by short vowels before ca. 1350 BCE;[142] in Biblical Hebrew traces are left." as an example.
done Mo-Al (talk) 01:42, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

References

  • Consistency is critical in your citations. I see a few times in the Notes section where you have the reference (Blau 2010:81-83) and then other places it says "see" (Blau 2010:81-83). Either use the word "see" all the time or none of the time.
  • Note 18 in the Notes section has a [citation needed] template, this should be fixed.
done Mo-Al (talk) 19:14, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • It seems to me that each note should have a references. That's up for debate but if I were reviewing this for GA or FA I would question why most do but some don't?
  • Consistency is broken in Ref 5, it seems like a note to me.
done Mo-Al (talk) 01:10, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are a couple of refs (43, 46 and 155) are just hyperlinks. Any reference to a website should include publisher, title and accessdate. Use {{cite web}} as a good template.
done Mo-Al (talk) 01:10, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ref 53 seems like a note.
done Mo-Al (talk) 19:17, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ref 83 "Dolgopolsky" is misspelled. Why is it not linked here or in Ref 84, or 24?
done Mo-Al (talk) 19:16, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ref 121 seems to be a note as well.
done Mo-Al (talk) 00:06, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Refs 149-153 break consistency as well. Why are they formatted differently from the rest?
done Mo-Al (talk) 01:10, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ref 154 is missing page number.
done Mo-Al (talk) 00:06, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Page numbers in the Bibliography section don't seem to fit as the specific page number references are in the References section. Also several books are missing ISBN numbers. This should be rectified.

Overall

  • This article is very comprehensive and well done. It is scholarly and covers a very important topic.
  • Make sure you are not plagiarizing portions of your sources. I have no evidence of this I'm just including it as a good point for all editors to keep in mind.
  • Consider what's been said above and not all of what I've said needs to be done for the article to pass GA. But the article does need work before it meets the GA Criteria.
  • This concludes my review, please contact me on my talk page if you have specific questions as I do not watch review pages. Best of luck. Shalom. H1nkles (talk) citius altius fortius 22:46, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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