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The Tiberian system of vocalisation for the Hebrew Bible represented its own local tradition. Two other local traditions that created written systems during the same period are refered to geographically as the vocalisations of "The Land of Israel" (not identical to Tiberias) and " Babylon". The former system had little or no historical influence, but the Babylonian system was dominant in some areas for many centuries, and even survives to this day. Unlike the Tiberian system, which mostly places vowel points under the Hebrew letters, the Babylonian system mostly places them above the letters, and is thus called the "supralinear" vowelisation.

As mentioned above, the Tiberian points were designed to reflect a specific oral tradition for reading the biblical text. But later they were applied to other texts (one of the earliest being the Mishnah), and used widely by Jews in other places with different oral traditions for how to read Hebrew. Thus the Tiberian vowel points and cantillation signs became a common part of Hebrew writing.