Editing Mater lectionis (section)

==Origins and development==

Historically, the practice of using ''matres lectionis'' seems to have originated when {{IPA|/aj/}} and {{IPA|/aw/}} diphthongs, written with the ''[[Yodh|yod]]'' {{lang|he|י}} and the ''[[waw (letter)|waw]]'' {{lang|he|ו}} consonant letters respectively,  [[Monophthongization|monophthongized]] to simple long vowels {{IPA|/eː/}} and {{IPA|/oː/}}. This epiphenomenal association between consonant letters and vowel sounds was then seized upon and used in words without historic diphthongs.

In general terms, it is observable that early [[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenician]] texts have very few ''matres lectionis'', and that during most of the 1st millennium BCE, Hebrew and Aramaic were quicker to develop ''matres lectionis'' than Phoenician. However, in its latest period of development in [[North Africa]] (referred to as "[[Punic language|Punic]]"), Phoenician developed a very full use of ''matres lectionis'', including the use of the letter ''[[ayin]]'' {{Script/Hebrew|ע}}, also used for this purpose much later in [[Yiddish orthography]].

In pre-exilic Hebrew, there was a significant development of the use of the letter ''[[He (letter)|he]]'' {{lang|he|ה}} to indicate word final vowels other than ''ī'' and ''ū''. This was probably inspired by the phonological change of the third-person singular possessive suffix from {{IPA|/ahuː/}} > {{IPA|/aw/}} > {{IPA|/oː/}} in most environments. However, in later periods of Hebrew, the orthography was changed so word-final ''ō'' was no longer written with {{lang|he|ה}}, except in a few archaically-spelled proper names, such as [[Solomon]] {{lang|he|שלמה}} and [[Shiloh (biblical figure)|Shiloh]] {{lang|he|שלה}}. The difference between the spelling of the third-person singular possessive suffix (as attached to singular nouns) with {{lang|he|ה}} in early Hebrew versus with {{lang|he|ו}} in later Hebrew has become an issue in the authentication of the [[Jehoash Inscription]].

According to Sass (5), already in the Middle Kingdom there were some cases of ''matres lectionis'', i.e. consonant graphemes which were used to transcribe vowels in foreign words, namely in Punic (Jensen 290, Naveh 62), Aramaic, and Hebrew ({{lang|he|ה}}, {{lang|he|ו}}, {{lang|he|י}}; sometimes even ''[[aleph]]'' {{lang|he|א}}; Naveh 62). Naveh (ibid.) notes that the earliest Aramaic and Hebrew documents already used ''matres lectionis''. Some scholars argue that the Greeks must therefore have borrowed their alphabet from the Arameans. However, the practice has older roots, as the [[Ugaritic alphabet|Semitic cuneiform alphabet of Ugarit]] (13th century BC) already had ''matres lectionis'' (Naveh 138).