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E-Crit (Electronic Critical Edition)

Miklal is delighted to announce the release of E-Crit, which stands for Electronic Critical Edition. E-Crit is designed to allow for electronic comparison of classical rabbinic texts. For this open-source project, Miklal partnered with Dr. Rachel S. Mikva, Rabbi Herman E. Schaalman Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies at Chicago Theological Seminary to produce E-Crit through the generous funding of the American Academy for Jewish Research.

You can download the application on the description page. You can also view installation instructions or help files. Feel free to contact us for more information.

Biblical Hebrew flash cards: Babel Flashcards

Today we are highlighting one of our decks available for purchase for Babel Flashcards: our complete deck of Biblical Hebrew flashcards, entitled Biblical Hebrew (CBHAG). With the glosses produced by a Biblical Hebrew and Semitic philologist and proofed by Miklal and others, there are several distinctive characteristics of the glosses for these Biblical Hebrew lexemes that together make them the highest quality glosses ever produced for Biblical Hebrew. Here are some of their characteristics:

They contain glosses for every single Hebrew lexeme (word) in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, over 8000 in all.
They integrate contemporary definitions with traditional interpretations of all Hebrew and Aramaic Lexemes, making use of the finest lexicographic research in Biblical Hebrew.
They list definitions in order of descending frequency (the most frequent definition is first).
They align proper names with the spelling of most current English Bible translations.
They update archaic meanings to modern norms of language.
They provide glosses for all verbal stems in which that verb appears in the Bible: no more, no fewer.
They provide separate glosses for all homonyms.

In addition, Babel Flashcards gives you unparalleled ways of memorizing these glosses rapidly. Choosing the precise set of words you want to study is easy, whether you want to learn frequently occurring words, words of a given part of speech, words in particular passage, some combination thereof, or any other combination or words you wish. Babel Flashcards makes use of the Leitner method of spaced repetition to enable you to learn as quickly and effortlessly as possible. Whether you are on a PC or on Mac, Babel Flashcards always displays the Hebrew beautifully.

Have you noticed that verbs in Hebrew (and other Semitic languages) take longer to learn than nouns and adjectives? Babel Flashcards helps you learn Biblical Hebrew verbs via the following distinctive (optional) features.

Glosses are split up by verbal stem and displayed in different parts of the screen.
Glosses for verbal stems in which that particular verb occurs frequently are displayed darker than glosses for verbal stems in which that particular verb occurs infrequently, causing your eye to be drawn naturally to glosses for commonly occurring verbal stems.
Glosses can be hidden for verbal stems in which that particular verb occurs infrequently. You have control over the setting, allowing you to concentrate on glosses for the common verbal stems for a given verb.

Purchase this deck (and download the freely available Babel Flashcards application) on our Products page today!

Interested in Dave Black’s Learn to Read New Testament Greek?

Dave Black asked on his blog whether people would like to see a Babel Flashcards module for his esteemed grammar Learn to Read New Testament Greek. He invited interested parties to respond to let him know via email at dblack@sebts.edu. We encourage you to do so!

Christmas sale

We are having a sale for Christmas on all decks for Babel Flashcards. Use the coupon code christmas2010 to get 30% off this Christmas season. For those of you who are students, this could be an excellent opportunity to get on the right track in learning your vocabulary for next semester. For those of you who are clergy, this could be an excellent opportunity for you to meet your goal in the new year of not only keeping up but actually improving your facility with biblical languages. For those of you still looking for Christmas presents, how about giving something that will help your family member/friend/pastor/etc. in the upcoming year?

This sale is good through January 1, 2011.

Release of flash cards for An Invitation to Biblical Hebrew: A Beginning Grammar by Russell T. Fuller and Kyoungwon Choi

Miklal is delighted to announce the release of a deck of flashcards for Invitation to Biblical Hebrew: A Beginning Grammar, by Russell T. Fuller and Kyoungwon Choi (Kregel, 2006). This deck contains all 526 words in this detailed, deductive grammar of Biblical Hebrew, using the precise lexemes and glosses in the grammar. It also includes chapter, part of speech, and frequency (including verbal stem frequency) information. Derivative decks corresponding to each chapter automatically come with it, and you can easily create your own derivative decks as well.

You can get this deck by itself or bundled with our comprehensive deck for Biblical Hebrew (over 8000 words) to help you keep learning Hebrew vocabulary words after your introductory year of Hebrew. You can read a fuller description of Babel Flashcards, or you can proceed to our Product Page to get this deck. Our regular, low-price for the deck is only $14.99 or $21.99 bundled with our comprehensive deck for Biblical Hebrew. Be sure to take a look at our promotions page to see if we are running an even better deal.

Here are a couple of screenshots:

Heading to Atlanta for conferences

The Society of Biblical Literature, the Evangelical Theological Society, the American Schools of Oriental Research, and many affiliate groups will all be convening in Atlanta between Wednesday, November 17 and Tuesday, November 23. Will you be there? We will. Would you like to see like to see Babel Flashcards shown off? Would you like to give input on new features to add to Babel Flashcards? Would you like to talk about having another grammar available for Babel Flashcards? Would you like to talk about your upcoming project that could make use of Miklal’s unique combination of skills in Bible and Semitics as well as software development? If so, then contact us to let us know how we can meet you.

Basics of Biblical Hebrew (Gary D. Pratico and Miles V. Van Pelt) 2nd edition is released!

Today, Miklal Software Solutions has released a deck of flashcards for Babel Flashcards tracking a leading introductory Biblical Hebrew grammar, Basics of Biblical Hebrew Grammar: Second Edition by Gary D. Pratico and Miles V. Van Pelt (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, Mich.: 2007). This deck contains all 483 cards in this popular and accessible textbook, using the precise lexemes and glosses in the book. It also includes chapter, part of speech, and frequency (including verbal stem frequency) information. Derivative decks corresponding to each chapter automatically come with it, and you can easily create your own derivative decks as well.

Here are a couple of screenshots to whet your appetite.

Babel Flashcards welcomed warmly

Babel Flashcards is intended to enable anyone to learn vocabulary for Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Greek, and Biblical Aramaic efficiently and effectively. We think it will save students countless hours and enable others to keep up their languages. Its unparalleled set of distinctive features work toward that end. It is no surprise, then, that its recent release has been met with much fanfare. It has been called “an exciting new flashcard program…which should be helpful to any language student” and “a very helpful program.” On the benefits: “Pastors and students will certainly benefit tremendously from using it” and “the ease with which this package can be utilized makes it extremely useful.” Finally, one customer wrote, “The more I’m using this, the more I like it.” (See these comments and more here, here, here, and here.)

How can you start learning vocabulary using high quality cards, the power and freedom to create complex decks easily, beautiful rendering of UNICODE Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic across operating systems, display of Hebrew and Aramaic glosses catered to the stem-based nature of the Semitic verbal system, and use of the Leitner method of spaced repetition for efficient learning according to the way the brain works? Read more and download the application with sample decks here, or go straight to the Products Page to purchase decks, and start learning today!

The launch of Babel Flashcards was just the beginning. Stay tuned for updates in the near future that will make Babel Flashcards even more helpful to even more people, and remember: updates to the application are always free.