'Masters of the Tradition') were groups of Jewish scribe-scholars who worked from around the end of the 5th through 10th centuries CE,[1][2] based primarily in the Jewish centers of the Levant (e.g., Tiberias and Jerusalem) and Mesopotamia (e.g., Sura and Nehardea).
[3] Each group compiled a system of pronunciation and grammatical guides in the form of diacritical notes (niqqud) on the external form of the biblical text in an attempt to standardize the pronunciation, paragraph and verse divisions, and cantillation of the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) for the worldwide Jewish community.
It has been suggested that the ben Asher family and the majority of the Masoretes were Karaites.
"[8] The Masoretes devised the vowel notation system for Hebrew that is still widely used, as well as the trope symbols used for cantillation.
[9] The nakdanim were successors to the Masoretes in the transmission of the traditional Hebrew text of the Old Testament.