Samaritan vocalization

The Samaritan vocalization (or Samaritan pointing, Samaritan niqqud, Hebrew: ניקוד שומרוני) is a system of diacritics devised by the Samaritans to add to the consonantal text of the Samaritan Pentateuch and to Samaritan prayer books to indicate vowel quality, reflecting Samaritan Hebrew. It is estimated that the Samaritan vocalization was invented around the 10th century CE. Only the most important vowels were indicated, and variation exists within the system between different manuscripts.