Wikipedia's first sentence called it “used either to represent vowels or to distinguish between alternate pronunciations of several letters of the he”. Today it says “way to indicate vowels”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2010 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since.Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now.Red text: written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot.1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2010
Gen. 1:9 And God said, "Let the waters be collected". Letters in black, pointing in red , cantillation in blue Hebrew orthography includes several types of diacritics : (Mainly) a set of mostly optional ancillary glyphs known as niqqud in Hebrew, which are used either to represent vowels or to distinguish between alternate pronunciations of several letters of the Hebrew alphabet (the rafe sign is sometimes also listed as part of the niqqud system) ; geresh , another diacritic that affects pronunciation (but isn't considered a part of niqqud) or indicates initialisms , and gershayim , which indicate acronyms (both geresh and gershayim are also used to denote Hebrew numerals ); and cantillation , "accents" which show how Biblical passages should be chanted and which sometimes possess a punctuating function.1 Several diacritical systems were developed in the Early Middle Ages. The most widespread system, and the only one still used to a significant degree today, was created by the Masoretes of Tiberias in the second half of the first millennium in the Land of Israel (see Masoretic Text , Tiberian Hebrew ). Niqqud signs and cantillation marks are small compared to consonants, so they can be added without retranscribing texts whose writers did not anticipate them. Among those who do not speak Hebrew, vowel pointing is the sometimes unnamed focus of controversy regarding the interpretation of those written with the Tetragrammaton —written as יְהֹוָה in Hebrew . The interpretation affects discussion of the authentic ancient pronunciation of the name whose conventional English forms are " Jehovah " and " Yahweh ".2
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 369885965.
The opening as it stood in 2015 3 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Gen. 1:9 And God said, "Let the waters be collected". Letters in black, pointing in red , cantillation in blue Hebrew orthography includes several types of diacritics : (Mainly) a set of mostly optional ancillary glyphs known as niqqud in Hebrew, which are used either to represent vowels or to distinguish between alternate pronunciations of several letters of the Hebrew alphabet (the rafe sign is sometimes also listed as part of the niqqud system) ; geresh and gershayim , two diacritics that are not considered a part of niqqud, each of which has several functions (e.g. to denote Hebrew numerals ); and cantillation , "accents" which show how Biblical passages should be chanted and which sometimes possess a punctuating function. Several diacritical systems were developed in the Early Middle Ages. The most widespread system, and the only one still used to a significant degree today, was created by the Masoretes of Tiberias in the second half of the first millennium in the Land of Israel (see Masoretic Text , Tiberian Hebrew ). The Niqqud signs and cantillation marks developed by the Masoretes are small compared to consonants, so they could be added to the consonantal texts without retranscribing them.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 582329907.
The opening as it stood in 2020
Gen. 1:9 And God said, "Let the waters be collected". Letters in black, pointing in red , cantillation in blue Hebrew orthography includes three types of diacritics : Niqqud in Hebrew is the way to indicate vowels, which are omitted in modern orthography, using a set of ancillary glyphs.Since the vowels can be understood from surrounding, context can help readers read the correct pronunciations of several letters of the Hebrew alphabet (the rafe sign and other rare glyphs are also listed as part of the niqqud system but are not in common use) ; geresh and gershayim , two diacritics that are not considered a part of niqqud, each of which has several functions (e.g. to denote Hebrew numerals ); and cantillation , "accents" which are used exclusively to indicate how Biblical passages should be chanted and may possess a punctuating function. Several diacritical systems were developed in the Early Middle Ages. The most widespread system, and the only one still used to a significant degree today, was created by the Masoretes of Tiberias in the second half of the first millennium in the Land of Israel (see Masoretic Text , Tiberian Hebrew ). The Niqqud signs and cantillation marks developed by the Masoretes are small compared to consonants, so they could be added to the consonantal texts without retranscribing them.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 962791149.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023
System of marks added to Hebrew letters Gen. 1:9 And God said, "Let the waters be collected". Letters in black, pointing in red , cantillation in blue Hebrew orthography includes three types of diacritics : Niqqud in Hebrew is the way to indicate vowels , which are omitted in modern orthography, using a set of ancillary glyphs. Since the vowels can be understood from surrounding letters, context can help readers read the correct pronunciations of several letters of the Hebrew alphabet (the rafe sign and other rare glyphs are also listed as part of the niqqud system but are not in common use) ; geresh and gershayim , two diacritics that are not considered a part of niqqud , each of which has several functions (e.g. to denote Hebrew numerals ); and cantillation , "accents" which are used exclusively to indicate how Biblical passages should be chanted and may possess a punctuating function. Several diacritical systems were developed in the Early Middle Ages . The most widespread system, and the only one still used to a significant degree today, was created by the Masoretes of Tiberias in the second half of the first millennium in the Land of Israel (see Masoretic Text , Tiberian Hebrew ). The Niqqud signs and cantillation marks developed by the Masoretes are small in size compared to consonants, so they could be added to the consonantal texts without retranscribing them.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1176617547. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “used either to represent vowels or to distinguish between alternate pronunciations of several letters of the he”. Today it says “way to indicate vowels”. Read the current article and compare.
2010
2015
2020
Oct '23
2025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2010, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.
Then
used either to represent vowels or to distinguish between alternate pronunciations of several letters of the he
Now
way to indicate vowels
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.
