Ta'amim - טעמי המקרא 

Simon Tabbush

Introduction

“Ta’amei ha-miqra” or “te’amim”,  known in English as “accents”, are signs written or printed in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh) above or below the words.  They exist:

1.         to mark the stressed syllable in each word (though a few signs always go on the first or last letter of a word);

2.         as punctuation showing the word groups and breaks in a verse;

3.         to denote the musical chant (“cantillation”) for the text.

There are two systems of cantillation marks in the Tanakh.  One is used in the twenty-one prose books, while the other appears in the three poetical books of Psalms, Proverbs and Job.  Except where otherwise stated, this article describes the “prose” system.

The current system of accents has its historical roots in the Tiberian masorah.

The grammar of the te’amim

In general, each word in the Tanakh has one accent. This may be either a “disjunctive” (mafsiq), showing a division between that and the following word, or a “conjunctive” (meḥabber or mesharet), joining the two words (like a slur in music).

The disjunctives are traditionally divided into four levels, with lower level disjunctives marking less important breaks. For musical reasons, both conjunctives and lower level disjunctives may vary, depending on which higher level disjunctive follows them.

First level

sof pasuq (“end of verse”): marks the end of a verse

atnaḥ (“rest): marks the middle of a verse.

Second level 

zaqef qaton (“little upright”): the usual second level disjunctive

zaqef gadol (“big upright”): replaces zaqef qaton when it constitutes a phrase on its own

tarḥa (“dragging”): precedes sof pasuq or atnaḥ

segolta (“bunch of grapes”): stronger second level disjunctive, used in very long verses

shalshelet (“chain”): replaces segolta when it constitutes a phrase on its own

Third level

rebia’ (“fourth”): the usual third level disjunctive

zarqa (“throwing”): precedes segolta

qadma (“first”): precedes zaqef qaton

tere qadmin: replaces qadma when the word is not stressed on the last syllable

yetib, short for shofar yetib (“sitting horn”): replaces qadma when it constitutes a phrase on its own

tebir (“break”): precedes tarḥa

Fourth level

pazer gadol (“great scattering”), talsha (“detached”), gerish (“expulsion”): these cluster, usually in that order,  near the beginning of a long half-verse

shene gerishin: replaces gerish when it is not preceded by azla AND the word is stressed on the last syllable

shofar holekh with paseq (“divide”): precedes rebia’

qarne farah (“horns of a cow”): can replace pazer gadol (once in the Torah)

Conjunctives

ma’arikh (“lengthening”): precedes sof pasuq, tarḥa (occasionally tebir and other disjunctives)

mehuppakh, short for shofar mehuppakh (“reversed horn”): precedes qadma

darga (“step”): precedes tebir

shofar holekh (“walking horn”): precedes most other disjunctives

azla (“going away”): precedes gerish and some conjunctives

tirtsah, also known as talsa: precedes some conjunctives

yareaḥ ben yomo (“one day old moon”): precedes qarne farah  (once in the Torah)

One other symbol is tere ta’ame, double ma’arikh.  There is some argument about whether this is another conjunctive or an occasional replacement for tebir.

The accents have the effect of grouping the words of a verse into a number of characteristic phrases, each with its own melody. Typical phrases are ma’arikh tarḥa ma’arikh sof pasuq; ma’arikh tarḥa shofar holekh atnaḥ; mehuppakh qadma shofar holekh zaqef qaton; shofar holekh-paseq shofar holekh rebia’; pazer gadol talsha azla gerish. The same phrases can occur in shorter form, by omitting one or more conjunctives.

Psalms, Proverbs and Job

The system of cantillation signs used throughout the Tanakh is replaced by a very different system for these three poetic books.  These books are referred to as “sifre emet” (Books of Truth), the word “emet” meaning “truth”, but also being an acronym for the first letters of the three books (Iyov, Mishle, Tehillim). (The short narratives at the beginning and end of Job use the prose system, but the bulk of the book uses the poetic system.) 

The system for the poetic books uses many of the same symbols as the prose system, but often for entirely different purposes.

A verse may be divided into one, two or three stichs (half lines).  A one-stich verse is divided by dehi, which looks like tarḥa but is under the last letter of the word.  In a two-stich verse, the first stich ends with atnaḥ.  In a three-stich verse, the first stich ends with ‘oleh ve-yored, which looks like mehuppakh (above the word) followed by tarḥa, on either the same word or two consecutive words, and the second stich ends with atnaḥ. The last stich ends with sof pasuq as in the prose books.

Major disjunctives within a stich are rebia’ qaton (immediately before ‘oleh ve-yored), rebia’ gadol (elsewhere) and tsinnor (which looks like zarqa).  The last stich may be divided by rebia’ megurash, which looks like gerish combined with rebia’.

Minor disjunctives are pazer gadol, shalshelet gedolah, qadma legarmeh and mehuppakh legarmeh: all of these except pazer gadol are followed by paseq (vertical line).  Mehuppakh without paseq sometimes occurs at the beginning of a stich.

All other accents are conjunctives.

The music of the te’amim

The accents guide the reader in applying a chant to Biblical readings.  This chant is technically regarded as a ritualized form of speech intonation rather than as a musical exercise like the singing of metrical hymns: for this reason we always speak of “saying” or “reading” a passage rather than of “singing” it. 

The melodies applied are widely different in different Jewish ethnic communities. Within each community, there are different chants for different books of the Bible.

The Syrian cantillation tradition is a member of the “Ottoman Sephardic” family: this family also includes the Turkish, Syrian, Egyptian and “Jerusalem Sephardic” traditions. The Karaite tradition, being based on the Egyptian, also forms part of this group, as does one form of the Iraqi tradition. (Another Iraqi melody is closer to the Moroccan and Spanish and Portuguese family.) 

Separate melodies exist for the following books:

• The Torah.  This exists both in a simple mode, originally used for teaching purposes, and in a more elaborate cantorial mode, approaching the Egyptian.
• The Prophets, used in reading the haftarah.
• Psalms
• Proverbs
• Job (poetic parts)
• Song of Songs
• Ruth
• Lamentations
• Esther.

Any other book of Ketubim is read to the tune of Ruth.

History

Three systems of Hebrew punctuation (including vowels and accents) have been used: the Babylonian, the Palestinian and the Tiberian, only the last of which is used today.

Babylonian system

Babylonian Biblical manuscripts from the Geonic period contain no cantillation marks in the current sense, but small Hebrew letters are used to mark significant divisions within a verse.  Up to eight different letters are found, depending on the importance of the break and where it occurs in the verse: these correspond roughly to the disjunctives of the Tiberian system.  For example, in some manuscripts the letter “tav”, for tebir (break), does duty for both Tiberian tebir and zaqef. In general there are no symbols for the conjunctives, though some late manuscripts use the Tiberian symbols for these.  There is also no equivalent for low-grade disjunctives such as talsha: these are generally replaced by the equivalent of zaqef or rebia’.

Palestinian system

The Babylonian system is mainly concerned with showing breaks in the verse.  Early Palestinian manuscripts, by contrast, are mainly concerned with showing phrases: for example the tarḥa-atnaḥ, zarqa-segolta and qadma-zaqef qaton sequences, with or without intervening unaccented words.  These sequences are generally linked by a series of dots, beginning or ending with a dash or a dot in a different place to show which sequence is meant.  Unaccented words (which in the Tiberian system carry conjunctives) are generally shown by a dot following the word, as if to link it to the following word.  There are separate symbols for more elaborate tropes like pazer gadol and talsha.

Tiberian system

By the tenth century C.E., the chant in use in Palestine had clearly become more complex, both because of the existence of pazer gadol, gerish and talsha motifs in longer verses and because the realization of a phrase ending with a given type of break varied according to the number of words and syllables in the phrase.  The Tiberian Masoretes therefore devised a comprehensive notation with a symbol on each word, to replace the fragmentary systems previously in use.  In particular it was necessary to invent a range of different conjunctive accents to show how to introduce and elaborate the main motif in longer phrases.  (For example, tebir is preceded by ma’arikh, a short flourish, in shorter phrases but by darga, a more elaborate run of notes, in longer phrases.)  The system they devised is the one in use today, and is found in Biblical manuscripts such as the Aleppo Codex.  A Masoretic treatise called Diqduqe ha-te’amim (precise rules of the accents) by Aaron ben Moses ben Asher survives,[1] though both the names and the classification of the accents differ somewhat from those of the present day.

The Tiberian system spread quickly and was accepted in all communities by the 13th century.  Each community re-interpreted its reading tradition so as to allocate one short musical motif to each symbol. 

Mishnah

Some old manuscripts of the Mishnah include cantillation marks similar to those in the Bible.  There is no surviving system for the musical rendition of these.

Today we have a special tune for the Mishnaic passage “Bammeh madliqin” in the Qabbalat Shabbat service.  Otherwise, there is a customary intonation used in the study of Mishnah or Talmud, somewhat similar to an Arabic mawwal, but this is not reduced to a precise system like that for the Biblical books.  Recordings have been made for Israeli national archives, and Frank Alvarez-Pereyre has published a book-length study of the Syrian tradition of Mishnah reading on the basis of these recordings.[2]

 

Zarqa: "Scatterer", because it is like a scattering of notes.
Maqqaf: “Binder”, hyphen. (No musical rendition)
Shofar Holech: “Horn going”: opening faces forward in the word.
Segolta: "Bunch of grapes" (shape looks like bunch of grapes).
Pazer Gadol: "Lavish" or "scatter", because it has so many notes.
Talsha, Tilsha: "Detached" because they are never linked to previous or following notes as one musical phrase.
Azla: "Going away"
Gereesh: "Expulsion", it is a series of notes requiring a long breath.
Pasek: “Division”: line between two words
Rabia: "A quarter", either because it has four short notes as well as the main one, or because it splits the half verse from the start to atnach into quarters (as it ranks below zaqef, the main division within the half verse).
Shene Gerishin: Double Gereesh, from its appearance.
Darga: "Trill" from its sound, or "step" from its shape.
Tevir: "Broken", because there is a big jump down in pitch between the first and second notes, or because it represents a break in reading.
Ma'arich: “Lengthener”, it prolongs the motif of the following word
Tarcha: “Dragging” or “effort”, the last break before the pause.
Atnach: "Rest" because it is the pause in the middle of a verse.
Shofar Mehuppach: "reversed horn", because it faces the other way from Shofar Holech.
Qadma: "To progress, advance." occurs before zakef & shape is leaning forward.
Tere Qadmin: 2 'qadma' signs
Zaqef Qaton/Gadol: "Upright" (from their shape, or in allusion to a hand signal); Qaton = small (short); Gadol = large (long).
Shalshelet: "A chain." Either from its appearance or because it is a long chain of notes. There are only four in the whole Torah: Gen. 19:16, 24:12, 39:8; Lev. 8:23.
Tere Ta'ame: 2 signs
Yetiv: "Resting" or "sitting", because it may be followed by a short pause, or maybe because the shape is of a horn sitting up.
Sof Pasuq: "End of verse": it is the last note of every verse.
Also:    Numbers 35:5 has two notes found nowhere else in the Torah:
Qarne Farah: "Horns of a cow" (from its shape).
Yerach ben Yomo: "Moon one day old";  it looks like a crescent moon.

Maqam	Pizmon	Page	Song	Commentary	Recordings	Application
Sigah	מקרא		תורה	Maqam Sigah. The Torah is read every Monday, Thursday & Shabbat.	play pause Jack Azar play pause DMB play pause M Kairey play pause Instructional: Ma'arekhet HaTa'amim: Moshe Dabbah play pause Moshe Dwek play pause Eli Cabasso- Shelah play pause Iraqi style- Aseret HaDibrot play pause Jack Mizrahi- Reading for 1 Rosh Hashana play pause Eqeb- Moshe Dabbah (Egyptian) play pause Vayesheb -M Kairey play pause Shofetim- Amerique Ashear (1989)
Ajam	מקרא		נביאים	Maqam Girkah (like Ajam) for Egyptians, Maqam Nawah for Syrians. The Haftarah is read every Shabbat, after the Torah.	play pause I Cabasso - Josh 1:1-9 play pause G Shrem - Sample - Verses before reading Nebiim play pause M Kairey- Jeremiah 16-17: Haftarah Behuqotai play pause Haftarat Eqeb (Isaiah 49)- Moshe Dabbah
Rast	מקרא		תהלים	Maqam Rast for Egyptians, Maqam Nahwand for Syrians. Tehillim, or Psalms, are read during the prayer services.	play pause G. Shrem Sample play pause G. Shrem Sample 2 play pause Taamim
Sigah	מקרא		משלי	Maqam Sikah (but different than Torah). Portions of this book are read during services. Some have a custom of reading this book during Shabuot. The passage "Eshet Hayil," read on Friday night Kiddush, is from this book.	play pause Y. Hamaoui play pause G. Shrem play pause G. Shrem Sample 2 play pause M. Kairey chapter 1
Rast	מקרא		איוב	Ancient undeveloped Rast. Chapter 1-3:1 (narrative) is read like Megillat Ruth. From 3:2 and onwards is read like Iyob. This book is read on Tisha B'Ab.	play pause G. Shrem play pause G. Shrem play pause M. Kairey chapter 1 play pause M. Kairey chapter 3
Bayat	מקרא		שיר השירים	Maqam Bayat. Read every Friday night.	play pause G. Shrem play pause Recording
Hoseni	מקרא		מגילת רות	Maqam Hoseni. Iyob Chapter 1-2, Qohelet, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemia, and Dibrei Hayamim are read like Book of Ruth. This book is read on Shabuot.	play pause G. Shrem
Ajam	מקרא		מגילת איכה	Maqam Ajam. Read on Tisha B'Ab.	play pause G. Shrem play pause G. Shrem play pause M. Kairey
Saba	מקרא		מגילת אסתר	Maqam Saba-Mouhayar. Read on Purim.	play pause G. Shrem
Rahawi Nawah	מקרא		משנה	Maqam Nawah. Some signs were also sometimes used in medieval manuscripts of the Mishnah, but apparently not today.	play pause G. Shrem play pause G. Shrem