One technical note because most students will not have a ugaritic font on their computer, the texts will be transliterated for the exercises. A short vocabulary of ugaritic ancient road publications. This language is only attested in texts from the last two centuries of the late bronze age 14thth centuries bce, when, as well as writing in the akkadian language using the mesopotamian cuneiform script, the scribes and literati of ugarit used a cuneiform version of the alphabet to write in their own language on clay tablets. Wordlist of the cuneiform alphabetic texts from ugarit, ras ibn hani and other places. Ugaritic belongs to the northwestern group of semitic languages and closely resembles the canaanite languages, such as phoenician and hebrew, within which subgroup some scholars classify it. It is believed that it was invented independent of other cuneiform writing systems and of the linear north semitic alphabet, though similarities in certain letters suggest that it may have been patterned after the north semitic alphabet. Virolleaud deciphered enough of the alphabet independently, laying the foundations for the complete decipherment. The ugaritic language was closely related to phoenician. Ugaritic cuneiform ugarit was a city in syria more than 3000 years ago. While most of the ugaritic in this product is transliterated, which is easier to read than the cuneiform letters, logos bible software is able to display and search on cuneiform ugaritic text. A grammar of the ugaritic language pdf for free, preface. The ugaritic script was really one of a kind, for it was a cuneiform alphabet old persian really was closer to a syllabary. Ugaritic alphabet, cuneiform writing system used on the syrian coast from the 15th to th century bc.
The ugaritic alphabet is a cuneiform abjad consonantal alphabet used from around either the fifteenth century bce or 0 bce for ugaritic, an extinct northwest semitic language, and discovered in ugarit modern ras shamra, syria, in 1928. Letters in the same row generally have the same derivation. Ugaritic cuneiform outwardly resembles other cuneiform scripts and has a sound system based on consonant alphabets such as phoeniciancanaanite. Ugaritic script was really one of a kind, for it was a cuneiform alphabet. My first effort, full of mistakes in my turn, was a reedition of the hippiatric texts, a genre of which the oldest ver. This is an up to date concordance of ugaritic based on the newer ktu. Ugaritic tablets it is evident that the ugaritic alphabet was then in quite an advanced and developed stage and not at its formation stage. For the semitics scholar, this book is an absolute must for comparative study. Others think that because ugarits alphabet was not found outside the city, it represented a localized development from an earlier semitic alphabetic system. The socalled ugaritic writing is the local writing of the ancient city of ugarit modern ras shamra. Ugarit 523 ugaritic iii 5 introduction to the ugaritic canaanite language of ancient ugarit modern ras shamra, circa fourteenth century bce. Our knowledge of the ugaritic language is supplemented by evidence from akkadian texts found at ugarit and containing many ugaritic words, especially names.
The ugaritic tablets are noted for another significant reason. This video covers the entire ugratic alphabet and includes the cuneiform, ipa, and transcriptions. In the charts below i only list its consonants, not its actual writing system. Other articles where ugaritic language is discussed. The ugaritic texts are a corpus of ancient cuneiform texts discovered since 1928 in ugarit ras shamra and ras ibn hani in syria, and written in ugaritic, an otherwise unknown northwest semitic language. Ugaritic is also one of the most important languages used to help discern the meaning of difficult hebrew words and phrases. Ugaritic cuneiform was probably created sometime during the th century bc. An introduction to ugaritic english and ugaritic edition. The cuneiform alphabetic texts from ugarit, ras ibn hani and other places.
Beginning with the alphabet, each new lesson builds on the ones before it. The only time the actual cuneiform characters will be used is in the first lesson when the alphabet is learned. Among other things, the app contains the following functions. A table of the letters of the ugaritic cuneiform alphabet, with corresponding conventional latinalphabet transcriptions. The course begins with the alphabet, each new lesson builds on the ones before, and in 15 units students will be equipped with a basic grasp of the language for. Hurrian inscriptions in the same script were also found, as were texts in conventional middle babylonian cuneiform. Though never a world power, ugarit was a key economic center in the ancient near east, serving as a major trade center between egypt and the major powers of bronze age asia minor and mesopotamia though ugarit had been inhabited almost continuously since the neolithic period c. Ugaritic, a northwest semitic language spoken and written in northern syria during the second millennium b. Earth eat eight eternity eye fall verb fat grease father fear verb field fire five fly verb foot four fruit full gather girl give god goddess gold good guard verb. It always reads from left to right signs are written by pressing a. Ugarit flourished from the 14th century bc until 118070 bc, when it was. Schaeffer at the north syrian port of ugarit, have produced am intermittent stream of alphabetic tablets, most of which are written in a semitic language not known as ugaritic.
The most famous of the ugarit texts are the approximately fifty epic. Wilfred watson and nicolas wyatt, the editors of the present handbook in the series handbook of oriental studies, have brought together and made accessible this accumulated knowledge on the archives. Ugaritic the language of ancient ugarit, recorded in written texts from the 14th and th centuries b. A brief overview of the alphabetic cuneiform used at ras shamra. Instead, these tablets were written in a 30character type of cuneiform that also has been named ugaritic. Clay tablets written in ugaritic provided the first evidence of the modern ordering of letters, which in ugaritic went like a, b, g, and so on, that eventually gave the order of letters in the greek and roman abecedaries. Ugaritic texts from the 14th century bc to the destruction of the city 11801170 bc are testifies. Approximately 1,500 texts and fragments have been found to date.
The ugaritic alphabet has been found in both north semitic and south semitic order, and so is marked with. Unlike the north semitic alphabet, however, ugaritic was. Cuneiform and ugaritic alphabets look at the second line of the green glyphs, this seems to be the basis of the toothbrush glyphs seen on the michigan mounds relics. The alphabet is based on the protosinaitic oldaarabic protosemitic alphabet from the 17th century bc and was writen in cuneiform adopted from mesopotamia.
Over the past seven decades, the scores of publications on ugarit in northern syria 15th to 11th centuries bce are so scattered that a good overall view of the subject is virtually impossible. It would greatly benefit from a new edition that would give lots substitution and conjugation drills with each new step of grammar taught so the reader could much better absorb the material better. The texts were written in the th and 12th centuries bce. We have evidence of this writing nearly exclusively in the city of ugarit or in the nearby ras ibn hani, summer residence of the kings of ugarit. It was probably created sometime during the 14th century bc. Unlike synthetic ugaritic grammarswhich have been known to be overwhelming for studentsbasics of ancient ugaritic draws from cuneiform texts and lets. Grammar, texts in transliteration, cuneiform selections, glossary, indices by cyrus herzl gordon, a basic g. Introduces the cuneiform alphabet and distinctive grammatical features. Other contemporary cuneiform scripts were syllabic or pictorial. Ugaritic letters are given in two different fonts, aegean and mph 2b damase. Unlike the normal cuneiform script, which includes hundreds of signs, the new ugaritic script is. Due to the nature of ugaritic as a cuneiform language, virtually all of the ugaritic examples in the grammar are transliterated, per the standard in cuneiform grammar.
The ugaritic cuneiform font presented here is one of a series of fonts intended to show how the modern latin alphabet has evolved from its original phoenician form to its present day appearance. This manual is typeset according to the conventions of the latex doc. Basics of ancient ugaritic is a teaching grammar of this ancient language, one spoken at the time of abraham occurring in ancient texts in cuneiform writing. Scaeffer, the cuneiform texts of ras shamra ugarit. Jun 18, 2017 ugaritic cuneiform was named after ugarit, the city state where it was used in what is now syria. Where such specialist semitological symbols are somewhat divergent from more widelyunderstood general linguistic ipa symbols, an equivalent ipa symbol follows in parentheses except that no attempt is made to interpret underdots for emphatic consonants in.
He deserves kudos though using actual ugaritic cuneiform and teaching on the topic in this book. The articulatory basis of the alphabet robin allott. Texts include the epic of aqhat, the baal epic, and the epic of kret. Other languages particularly hurrian were occasionally written in the ugaritic script in the area around ugarit, although not elsewhere. Ugaritic cuneiform was named after ugarit, the city state. The egyptian pseudoalphabet consisted of twentyfour consonants. X ugaritic michael everson, rick mcgowan 20010321 ugaritic. Ugaritic article about ugaritic by the free dictionary. As you can see, unlike many other semitic writing systems, ugaritic is written lefttoright. One must have a great sense of semitic languages in order for these examples to benefit you. Documents written in this tongue have been discovered at ras shamra, site of the ancient ugarit, and at nearby ras ibn hani the texts were written on clay tablets in a unique cuneiform alphabetic script. Two south semitic alphabets are also included for comparison. Thus, ugaritic was written in one of the oldest known alphabets.