Sigil Decoding

This page records the current sigil-decoding and sigil-presentation policy for translated output in MAM with doc. It is a working document, not a claim that every sigil in the corpus is already fully decoded.

The shared source-and-evidence reference lives in MAM-basics/doc/sigil-decoding.md. This page captures the subset of that workstream that already affects presentation decisions in this published product. The tracking issue is issue 257. The public-documentation follow-up for cases where Wikisource is weak or missing is issue 259.

Workflow note: this page is manually maintained as a public-facing subset of the shared decoder reference. It is not generated automatically from sigil-decoding.md, so future edits should merge carefully with the current HTML instead of replacing it wholesale.

Current Presentation Policy

Keep sigils in Hebrew in translated prose by default.
Explain sigils rather than replacing them with a separate Latin-letter system.
Prefer true Hebrew gershayim, as in תנ״ך and כתי״ל, over ASCII quote substitutes.
Mark unresolved or conflicting decodings explicitly instead of flattening them into a false single meaning.
Support both a central-reference mode and a standalone-passage mode as future presentation options.

Why This Is Its Own Workstream

Sigil handling is not just a wording problem. It also needs a shared source of truth, explicit handling of uncertainty, and a display strategy that stays readable in English while still helping readers learn to parse the Hebrew note language itself.

Important Test Case

Form	Current handling	Status	Reason
כתי״ק-מ	Cambridge Ketuvim manuscript, Cambridge Add. 1753	Working conclusion	Supported by the shared reference and by prose usage in MAM material; this is the current decoding to preserve.
ק-מ	Cambridge Ketuvim manuscript, Cambridge Add. 1753	Working conclusion	Current project policy treats ק-מ the same as כתי״ק-מ. An older local gloss differed, but it is retained only as provenance, not as the active decoding.

Status Labels

Label	Meaning
Confirmed	Directly supported by a primary source used in the shared reference.
Provisional	Plausible and useful, but not yet confirmed from the best source.
Conflicting	Different sources support materially different readings.
Unknown	Seen in the corpus, but not yet decoded with confidence.

Initial Decoder Set For Translation Work

Sigil	Meaning	Status
א	Aleppo Codex	Confirmed
ב	British Library Or 4445	Confirmed
ק	Cairo Codex of the Prophets	Confirmed
ל	Leningrad Codex	Confirmed
מ״ש	Minhat Shay	Confirmed
מג״ה	Miqra'ot Gedolot Ha-keter	Confirmed
מכון ממרא	Mechon Mamre	Confirmed
ק-מ	Cambridge Add. 1753	Working conclusion
כתי״ק-מ	Cambridge Add. 1753	Working conclusion

First Public Batch Beyond Strong Wikisource Coverage

Some corpus-visible sigils are already mature enough for public documentation here even though the best current support is not a strong Wikisource glossary entry. In these cases, the page should say what the project is currently using, and why, without overstating certainty.

Sigil	Meaning	Status	Public note
ותיקן-448	Vatican Ms 448	Confirmed	The corpus form already carries the shelfmark, and prose notes also cite the same witness as vat448.
פטרבורג-EVR-II-B-8	St. Petersburg Ms EVR-II-B-8	Confirmed	The corpus form already carries the shelfmark; it sometimes appears without the first hyphen.
פטרבורג-EVR-II-B-80	St. Petersburg Ms EVR-II-B-80	Confirmed	The corpus form already carries the shelfmark; folio references such as (8ב) and (16א) often follow it.
פטרבורג-EVR-II-C-1	St. Petersburg Ms EVR-II-C-1	Confirmed	The corpus form already carries the shelfmark; folio references such as (73א), (76ב), and (95א) often follow it.
פטרבורג-EVR-II-B-34	St. Petersburg Ms EVR-II-B-34	Confirmed	A Writings manuscript cited in Daniel and related Ketuvim notes.
פטרבורג-EVR-II-B-92	St. Petersburg Ms EVR-II-B-92	Confirmed	A Writings manuscript cited in Daniel and related Ketuvim notes.
ב1	British Library Or. 2375	Confirmed	Supported by JC3 and repeated Ketuvim corpus usage; often discussed as a Yemenite witness.
ש2	Ms Sassoon 82 ("Keter Shem Tov")	Confirmed	Supported by JC3 and corpus evidence; often treated as a Sephardic witness in prose discussion.
ב2	The manuscript ת451 names: a Yemenite Ketuvim manuscript by Joseph ben Benaya, 1484–85, formerly Meir Benayahu Ms T 451	Confirmed	Two sigils for one manuscript. MAM’s editor chose ב2 first, for its proximity to ב1, then abandoned it and switched to the number the manuscript had when Meir Benayahu held it, without updating the uses already written. The corpus was repointed on 2026-08-27, in 32 places over six chapters of Daniel, so MAM as it now stands has no ב2. Older text still has it — Wikisource page history, and the Sefaria and Accordance derivatives until each refreshes — which is why this row stays. This page said until 2026-08-27 that local evidence leaned against the identification; that inference was drawn carefully from real evidence and the editor’s account overturned it.

Two Presentation Modes To Support

Central-reference mode. Leave sigils in Hebrew and link them to a central decoder, optionally with hover text or tooltips.

Standalone passage mode. Leave sigils in Hebrew in the translated prose, but append a compact decoder table containing only the sigils used in that passage.

These modes are compatible. A central decoder can coexist with smaller passage-local decoder tables.

Near-Term Work

Use the corpus inventory in MAM-basics to prioritize real sigils instead of guessed ones.
Continue promoting mature entries from issue 259 when the public note can state the evidence cleanly.
Feed confirmed and clearly-labeled provisional decisions into future translated-note output in this product.

This page is intentionally conservative. When in doubt, preserve uncertainty and link back to the shared evidence trail rather than guessing.