Musical notation in languages with right-to-left writing?

Question

How does musical notation in languages that use right-to-left writing direction (such as Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Urdu, Yiddish) look like? Is it right-to-left too? If not (i.e. if they use the same European left-to-right notation), how do they manage to write the song lyrics under the staff to specify which syllable to sing on which note?

Answer 1

Hi. I'm a librarian at a Jewish history library. I can tell you that, in the context of Jewish language musical scores (I would guess Perso-Arabic script languages would be the same), the notes and musical notation are written in the same way internationally. The difference is that the words under the notes will be written split up syllable by syllable under each note - going left to right with the notes.

Example: הַתִּקְוָה

note--note--note

וָה - תִּקְ - הַ

I hope that was helpful! Let me know if you have other questions!