The Palestinian vocalization reflects a Hebrew dialect of
Palestine from the sixth to the eighth century, long after it had become extinct as a
first language before the third century. After it was no longer used as a
vernacular, religious scholars preserved the previously distinct dialects; scholars of the era noted that Hebrew was still used it to communicate () as late as the 10th century in
Tiberias. Palestinian Hebrew was a distinct dialect to
Samaritan Hebrew, the Hebrew recorded in the
Dead Sea Scrolls, and to Babylonian and
Tiberian Hebrew. Palestinian Hebrew is the antecedent to all modern pronunciations traditions of Hebrew except for that of
Yemeni Hebrew, which is based on Babylonian Hebrew; the Tiberian pointing is universally employed but the dialect underlying it went extinct in the 12th century. A standard view among scholars is that the Palestinian system preceded the Tiberian system, but later came under the latter's influence and became more similar to the Tiberian tradition of the school of
Aaron ben Moses ben Asher. All known examples of the Palestinian vocalization come from the
Cairo Geniza, discovered at the end of the 19th century, although scholars had first encountered a reference to this system in 1839 in
the Vitry Machzor. In particular, Palestinian
piyyutim generally make up the most ancient of the texts found, the earliest of which date to the 8th or 9th centuries and predate most of the known biblical fragments. == Description ==