This volume brings together papers relating to the pronunciation of Semitic languages and the representation of their pronunciation in written form. The papers focus on sources representative of a period that stretches from late antiquity until the Middle Ages. A large proportion of them concern reading traditions of Biblical Hebrew, especially the vocalisation notation systems used to represent them. Also discussed are orthography and the written representation of prosody.

Beyond Biblical Hebrew, there are studies concerning Punic, Biblical Aramaic, Syriac, and Arabic, as well as post-biblical traditions of Hebrew such as piyyu