What up with all these seforim coming out with nekudos added to them? I mean maybe some of them I can understand why "someone" might feel the need to add nekudos, but whats up with a sefer like the Moreh Nevuchim with Nekudos!? if someone needs nekudos to read the Moreh Nevuchim they have no business reading it in hebrew to begin with!

Agreed.

What about Moreh Nevuchim in English translation?

The Artscroll Ktzos Hachoshen with full nikkud is coming soon... (and it will be a sure sign of the Apocalyspe)

People had the same taina when they converted from Rashi Script to "square letters"...

I think it was all downhill once the innovative and aberrationist modernistim embraced the printing press.I think it's absolutely wonderful. By the way, why did the Rebbe encourage seforim in square letters rather than "Rashi" script?

Well, while my personal opinion might be that to really understand the Rambam (and not be from those that come out from reading the Moreh Nevuchim with theories that explicitly contradict what the Rambam writes in other places) one should at least know how to learn (at the bare minimum know how to read without nekudos!) I do think that using an english translation is a LOT different than one with Nekudos for you can at least understand what the words mean.

furthermore, there are plenty of people who "know how to learn" but find the language of the Moreh Nevuchim a bit hard, I see nothing wrong with them using an English Moreh nevuchim, and to the contrary I think they SHOULD use one (perhaps together with a hebrew one) keep in mind the Rambam did NOT write the Moreh Nevuchim in Hebrew, so ANY edition you use is a translation.

I myself have (besides various hebrew editions) two different english translations.

(of course this is all assuming one has no problem learning the Moreh Nevuchim)



I don't think that is exactly the same thing.

For myself, I know that a major motivator to learn to read Hebrew was that there was no other way to read what I wanted to read.

Why?

I am not sure what you refer to, but I would imagine that it be more accessible to the masses that said I still stand by what I wrote regarding the Moreh Nevuchim.

It's a shandah it was ever translated from the Arabic. Oh, by the way, why was it written in Arabic in the first place?
And you're fine with English but not Hebrew with nekudot for the MN?

The only reason seforim weren't traditionally printed with nekudot is that it's technically very difficult and time consuming, which is much of the reason for not having nekudot on manuscripts as well. I doubt it was davka so the masses who didn't know how to learn wouldn't be able to read it. After all, many seforim were written in Arabic davka for the masses, so nekudot is just continuing that tradition. I don't see how a sefer written in Arabic can be translated into ENglish but God forbid into Hebrew with Nekudot.

I actually seem to recall that the Rambam regretted that he did write it in Hebrew (or translate it in hebrew?) it was written in arabic I assume so that it be available to the masses.

As I said, I have no issue with it in english (I myself have used it plenty of times), let me try and put it this way, if you need nekudos to read the Moreh Nevuchim the nekudos will NOT help you (IMHO), other seforim I can understand, but not the Moreh Nevuchim.

I found it hard to learn Simla Chadasha without nekudot.
Although i don't usually have a problem with other sefarim.

I personally find nekudos to be distracting (and Rashi script to be more palatable to my eyes (!)), but as long as the nekudazation is done by a competent person who is familiar with the rules of grammar as they should be, and the rules of grammar as they are often ignored, I have no problem with it per se.

Who says? Moreh Nevukhim was originally in Arabic, which meant that it was meant to be accessible. Translating it into Hebrew also wasn't a means of making it less accessible; it was to make it more accessible, to Jews who didn't know Arabic.

Sure, but if you read Moreh Nevukhim without knowledge of Aristotelian metaphysics then you're also groping in the dark, and I imagine most readers of Moreh Nevukhim didn't take the time to consult the Loeb Classical Library to prepare for Moreh Nevukhim.

I actually was wondering if anyone ever thought of making a book designed to give all the background info for the MN.

It would be nonsense, but it would be scholarship.

Indeed.

I think I sort of said this in this thread itself.



My point was only about Nekudos, I frankly still don't see who they are geared for (I have only so far seen one edition that has nekudos [although it doesn't have any notes]).

It sounded like you were arguing against popularization.

perhaps it came out wrong, but I don't have an issue with popularization.

Then what's your issue? Is it simply that it would seem to have no purpose, so it's a waste of the preparer's time at best/ misleading to the public who would mistakenly think that this edition is somehow improved at worst?

I think more the first (but maybe little of the second as well) I really don't "care" if some guy wants to waste his time preparing, its his time after all, perhaps my issue is that while they may perceive themselves as popularizing and making it more accessible to the public they really aren't because (IMHO- but perhaps I am wrong) there really isn't a "public" that is having more access because of this.

Your issue, then, is that you think it was a stupid idea? Okay, I hear that.

Am I the only one who finds nekudos bothersome?

I find them fascinating, not bothersome. Fascinating, because they reveal that practically speaking no one fully follows the nekkudos. It's a graphic reminded that there is an ideal type of Hebrew, but that little to do with how people actually read Hebrew and little impact upon how they read it.

Well I wouldn't exactly call them "pointless".

And then you have to trust that the nekudos are the correct ones....

Not if you know how to point Hebrew yourself.

The interesting thing is seeing how many people pronounce כיון as keivan now that Artscroll has standardized it.
What bothers me is certain hypercorrections such as divrei Sorah instead of divrei Torah. It's off-putting.

sometimes it's just anti-zionism to the extreme. the way some of my cousins make sure to say CHArif.

What was it before?

I think that's it's a great idea. I know that for myself, especially when being forced to read outloud in class, I would be very embarrassed when I read a word incorrectly and the teacher corrected me. I saw a chumash in my landlord's house that has nekudos in rashi, and I thought it was a great idea. If you don't like it, no one's telling you to buy the chumash. But for those of us that get the word wrong (and then misunderstand the whole thing) it's a mechaya!

As opposed to?

the more natural way of putting equal stress on both syllables or slightly more on the second (this is when charif stands on its own, as in the tomato dip).

I like the word חשמ-ל

What about it?
And who taught my friend to write מי-ין שי-ינע פרי-ינט גי-יט? It's SO annoying!

They sell you a book and they don't give you the vowels... very clever, these Jews...

Well, at least your friend knows how to spell; quite a מעלה these days. Now if only good grammar weren't considered maskilish.

I'm lost.

ETA: This thread, too, got two pages in the 40 page setting.

I think his point was that, although it is ridicules to write like that (since the whole point of writing hashems name with two yuds IS in order that you not write out his name in full) you should still look at the bright side of it which is that "at least your friend knows how to spell" which isn't so common these days.

yeah

It was, and still is "kivan".

Oh please. Yiddish spelling is very straightforward and is nowhere as difficult as English spelling. The only reason someone can't spell in Yiddish is because they just don't care. (a monkey could learn how to spell in Yiddish in an afternoon)

Have you seen how people these days write (if they can), especially in North America? Sehr schrecklich.

Indeed. That's a good example. I'm not sure it's *entirely* the result of Artscroll though. Many people, myself included, at various times became exposed to a rebbe or maggid shi'ur who is a medakdek and changed this or that word according to what they were exposed to. Either way, it's the same effect.It is, but as it becomes more common perhaps it won't be. It is, after all, "correct."What's interesting is that I have *never* heard a person say "Mishneh Sorah." Never, ever, ever.In this case (divrei sorah) it's just dikduk.kivon is how the velt is noheg to say it (another example--here's a two for one--is called massekhes yoma "massekhta yuma.")It is, by definition, maskilish.

Only if we're talking about YIVO. Tzenah Urena didn't make atrocious declension errors.

No.

Thank you.

I don't understand the parentheses.

The problem is that no one even knows the correct Yiddish words to begin with. Yiddish is just a jumble of languages, and Modern Chassidish Yiddish is a jumble of languages + English + a bit of Hebrew, and between the evolution of the language among second- and third-generation American Yiddish speakers and the older generation trying to speak Yiddish the 'real' way and schools not knowing which way to go and students reading books written in older Yiddish and in Israeli Yiddish there is this whole big mush mash and no one knows if the letter should be a dalet or a tes, a yud or a vov, single or doubled, etc. Among other things. In school they taught us Yiddish grammar, and they taught us which articles to use for which genders, but how many of the students actually knew the genders of words? And yet, using the wrong article with certain words sounds wrong to people with trained ears, even if those ears are trained in the mumble jumble Yiddish of today.