Zarka (trope)
Zarka or zarqa (Hebrew: זַרְקָא֮, with variant English spellings) is a cantillation mark found in the Torah, Haftarah, and other books of the Hebrew Bible. It is usually found together with the Segol, with a Munach preceding either or both. The symbol for a Zarka is a 90 degrees rotated, inverted S. The Hebrew word זַרְקָא֮ translates into English as scatterer, since it is a scattering of notes.
Zarka is part of the Segol group. In this group, Zarka is the connector and Segol is the separator.
Zarka, Tsinnor and Tsinnorit
Zarka is also sometimes called tsinnor. Properly speaking, tsinnor is the name it receives when appears on the three poetic books (Job, Proverbs and Psalms, or the א״מת books, from their initials in Hebrew), and zarqa the name it gets on the remaining 21 books of the Hebrew Bible (also known as the prosaic books). Both sets of books use a different cantillation system.
Caution must be take not to confuse this mark with the very similar mark tsinnorit, which has the same shape but different position and use. They differ in the following:
Zarqa
Az-Zarqā (Arabic: الزرقاء; BGN: Az Zarqāʼ; local pronunciation ez-Zergā, ez-Zer'a, or ez-Zarka) is a city in Jordan located to the northeast of Amman. Zarqa is the capital of Zarqa Governorate. Its name means "the blue one".
Geography
Zarqa is located in the Zarqa River basin in northeast Jordan.
It is situated 15 miles (24 km) from Amman, in a northeastern direction.
History
Although inhabited since the 1st century, the city of Zarqa was established by immigrants from the Caspian Sea region at the beginning of the 20th century. The first settlement in the city was established in 1902 by Chechen immigrants who were displaced from the wars between the Ottoman and Russian Empires. They settled along the Zarqa River. At that time a station on the Hejaz Railway was built in the new settlement. The railway station turned Zarqa into an important hub. On 10 April 1905, the Ottoman governor issued a decree that allowed the Chechen immigrants to own lands which they settled on. The population then quickly grew in size. On 18 November 1928, the new Jordanian government issued a decree to establish the first municipal council for Zarqa.
