Talk:Meteg

Show me a metheg
The table showing the use of meteg in BHS fails in its purpose — it is unpointed. Since the table is lifted verbatim from the SIL page referenced in the table heading, you could have and should have copied over the twelve examples (they are .PNG files, not strings of text). (I also noticed that some of the methegs in the table are silluks.) — Solo Owl (talk) 15:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It's five years since that egregious error was reported. Please would someone fix this. DFH (talk) 16:30, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I myself had the resources to add the diacritics, and in doing so I also found that two word numbers needed correcting. DFH (talk) 17:01, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Some of the diacritics may have been reordered during the process by which Wikimedia edits are saved. To fix this one would need to replace the Hebrew Unicode characters by HTML entities. DFH (talk) 17:29, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * More fundamental, the changes I made towards improving the Hebrew text do not yet make use of the CGJ, ZWNJ and ZWJ characters as described in the right hand column. Further attention is required. DFH (talk) 17:37, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I have now fixed these. (The CGJ was omitted where it was optional.) DFH (talk) 17:58, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * (FIO) Inserting a CGJ where SIL claims it's optional can cause the appearance of the Meteg to be doubled (even when using Ezra SIL font). DFH (talk) 18:11, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

What does metheg mean?
The article tells that metheg signifies “secondary stress or vowel length”. How does this work when metheg is attached to a shwa or hataf? Is it common in non-Biblical writing, such as prayer books? — Solo Owl (talk) 15:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure about schwas, but I can tell you that meteg is normally not used in non-Biblical writing to mark secondary stress or vowel length. Prayer books may use it to mark primary stress, as mentioned in the article. Mo-Al (talk) 04:36, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Differences between publishers
I am no expert, but I believe that printed Tanakhs differ widely in how methegs are combined with vowels and cantillation, especially in the cases represented here; this should be acknowledged under the table, even if it is redundant on the page. My JPL Tanakh (1999) differs in most of these cases, either omitting metheg or printing it to the left of the niqqud. Do these differences have any effect on how the text is to be read aloud? — Solo Owl (talk) 15:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Note that the table's title indicates that it is specifically applicable to the BHS. As per the text before the table, other editions are not consistent with it. Mo-Al (talk) 04:37, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

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Making the examples clearer
It would be helpful if someone were to add the fully pointed versions of ויראו and שמרה to the article to illustrate the relationship of meteg to what's being discussed. Largoplazo (talk) 12:50, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Article still a total mess
As I dont know the original author's resources and intentions, i do not dare to edit what's written in the article --- but some things must be noticable by everyone, e.g. the example of words "containing more than one metheg" in the first sentence under "Usage", WHICH INCLUDE NO METHEG AT ALL i.e. worthless example for that argument.

Furthermore, i tried all display options i have in a browser, e.g. suppress webpage font, etc. nothing helps that the hebrew examples in the table will show the niqqud + cantillation marks + methegs in the right places, they r jumbled across everywhere, overlapping, and sometimes unreadable ...

And as already mentioned here in Talk, there is no explanation, or guideline what to do with metheg at shewa -- if its not copied wrong from the original text, so there must be some general "masoretic rule" or individual ketiv-qerê, at least something that illustrates what this elsewise contradicting and forbidden combination would mean -- -- a shewa can is an unaccented hateph "ultra-short" vowel placeholder, the exact vowel quality does not matter here, but its quantity cant be changed, which secondary stress would do too. If it DID and the masoretes back than would knew "ok so now here the shewa is obviously to pronounced like a (e.g.) pataH, but we dont need to change it in the orthography", the reader of the article does need this insight too, overwise it's blurres the use of description.

Hyperbaton (talk) 08:08, 20 December 2020 (UTC)