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Ugaritic
Extinct Northwest Semitic language From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Ugaritic[2][3] (/ˌjuːɡəˈrɪtɪk, ˌuː-/[4]) is an extinct Northwest Semitic language known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeologists in 1928 at Ugarit,[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] including several major literary texts, notably the Baal cycle.[11][12]
Ugaritic has been called "the greatest literary discovery from antiquity since the deciphering of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform".[13]
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Corpus
The Ugaritic language is attested in texts from the 14th through the early 12th century BC. The city of Ugarit was destroyed roughly 1190 BC.[14]
Literary texts discovered at Ugarit include the Legend of Keret or Kirta, the legends of Danel (AKA 'Aqhat), the Myth of Baal-Aliyan, and the Death of Baal. The latter two are also known collectively as the Baal Cycle. These texts reveal aspects of ancient Northwest Semitic religion in Syria-Palestine during the Late Bronze Age.
Edward Greenstein has proposed that Ugaritic texts might help solve biblical puzzles such as the anachronism of Ezekiel mentioning Daniel in Ezekiel 14:13–16[11] actually referring to Danel, a hero from the Ugaritic Tale of Aqhat.
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Phonology
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Ugaritic had 28 consonantal phonemes (including two semivowels) and eight vowel phonemes (three short vowels and five long vowels): a ā i ī u ū ē ō. The phonemes ē and ō occur only as long vowels and are the result of monophthongization of the diphthongs аy and aw, respectively.
The following table shows Proto-Semitic phonemes and their correspondences among Ugaritic, Akkadian, Classical Arabic and Tiberian Hebrew:
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Writing system
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The Ugaritic alphabet is a cuneiform script used beginning in the 15th century BC. Like most Semitic scripts, it is an abjad, where each symbol stands for a consonant, leaving the reader to supply the appropriate vowel. Only after an aleph the vowel is indicated (’a, ’i, ’u). With other consonants one can often guess the unwritten vowel, and thus vocalize the text, from (a) parallel cases with an aleph, (b) texts where Ugaritic words are written in Akkadian cuneiform syllables, (c) comparison with other West-Semitic languages, for example Hebrew and Arabic, or (d) generalized vocalization rules.[15]
Although it appears similar to Mesopotamian cuneiform (whose writing techniques it borrowed), its symbols and symbol meanings are unrelated. It is the oldest example of the family of West Semitic scripts such as the Phoenician, Paleo-Hebrew, and Aramaic alphabets (including the Hebrew alphabet). The so-called "long alphabet" has 30 letters while the "short alphabet" has 22. Other languages (particularly Hurrian) were occasionally written in the Ugarit area, although not elsewhere.
Clay tablets written in Ugaritic provide the earliest evidence of both the Levantine ordering of the alphabet, which gave rise to the alphabetic order of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin alphabets; and the South Semitic order, which gave rise to the order of the Ge'ez script. The script was written from left to right.
Grammar
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Ugaritic is an inflected language, and as a Semitic language its grammatical features are highly similar to those found in Classical Arabic and Akkadian. It possesses two genders (masculine and feminine), three cases for nouns and adjectives (nominative, accusative, and genitive [also, note the possibility of a locative case]); three numbers: (singular, dual, and plural); and verb aspects similar to those found in other Northwest Semitic languages. The word order for Ugaritic is verb–subject–object (VSO), possessed–possessor (NG), and noun–adjective (NA). Ugaritic is considered a conservative Semitic language, since it retains most of the Proto-Semitic phonemes, the basic qualities of the vowel, the case system, the word order of the Proto-Semitic ancestor, and the lack of the definite article.
The word order for Ugaritic is verb–subject–object (VSO) and subject–object–verb (SOV),[16] possessed–possessor (NG), and noun–adjective (NA). Ugaritic is considered a conservative Semitic language, since it retains most of the phonemes, the case system, and the word order of the ancestral Proto-Semitic language.[17]
Word order
The word order for Ugaritic is Subject Verb Object (SVO), Verb Subject Object (VSO), possessed–possessor (NG), and noun–adjective (NA).
Morphology
Ugaritic, like all Semitic languages, exhibits a unique pattern of stems consisting typically of "triliteral", or 3-consonant consonantal roots (2- and 4-consonant roots also exist), from which nouns, adjectives, and verbs are formed in various ways: e.g. by inserting vowels, doubling consonants, and/or adding prefixes, suffixes, or infixes.
Verbs
Aspects
Verbs in Ugaritic have 2 aspects: perfect for completed action (with pronominal suffixes) and imperfect for uncompleted action (with pronominal prefixes and suffixes). Verb formation in Ugaritic (like all Semitic languages) is based on triconsonantal roots. Affixes inserted into the root form different meanings. Taking the root RGM (which means "to say") for example:
Moods
Ugaritic verbs occur in 5 moods:
- These are reconstructed for the imperfect simple active pattern (G stem).
- Also considered a subjunctive.
Doubly Weak Verbs
In Ugaritic, "doubly weak verbs" refer to verbs whose roots contain two weak (or guttural) consonants. These verbs exhibit irregular patterns in their conjugation due to the inherent instability of the weak consonants, often leading to phonetic variations. This phenomenon is akin to that observed in other Semitic languages, including Hebrew.
For instance, the Ugaritic verb ḥwy, similar to Hebrew היה (h-y-h), "to be" or "to live," is an example of a doubly weak verb. Due to its weak consonants, this verb can undergo phonetic changes, such as the assimilation of waw (w) to yod (y), especially in the absence of an intervening vowel, leading to forms like ḥyy. This characteristic impacts the verb's inflection, resulting in variations that are atypical compared to regular (strong) verbs.[18]
Patterns
Ugaritic verbs occur in 10 reconstructed patterns or binyanim:
- Gordon, Cyrus (1947). Ugaritic Handbook, I. Pontifical Biblical Institute. p. 72.
- yušapʻalu?
Nouns
Nouns in Ugaritic can be categorized according to their inflection into: cases (nominative, genitive, and accusative), state (absolute and construct), gender (masculine and feminine), and number (singular, dual, and plural).
Case
Ugaritic has three grammatical cases corresponding to: nominative, genitive, and accusative. Normally, singular nouns take the ending -u in the nominative, -i in the genitive and -a in the accusative. Using the word malk- (king) and malkat- (queen) for example:
As in Arabic, some exceptional nouns (known as diptotes) have the suffix -a in the genitive. There is no Ugaritic equivalent for Classical Arabic nunation or Akkadian mimation.
State
Nouns in Ugaritic occur in two states: absolute and construct. If a noun is followed by a genitival attribute (noun in the genitive or suffixed pronoun) it becomes a construct (denoting possession). Otherwise, it is in the absolute state. Ugaritic, unlike Arabic and Hebrew, has no definite article.
Gender
Nouns which have no gender marker are for the most part masculine, although some feminine nouns do not have a feminine marker. However, these denote feminine beings such as ʼumm- (mother). /-t/ is the feminine marker which is directly attached to the base of the noun.
Number
Ugaritic distinguishes between nouns based on quantity. All nouns are either singular when there is one, dual when there are two, and plural if there are three or more.
Singular
The singular has no marker and is inflected according to its case.
Dual
The marker for the dual in the absolute state appears as /-m/. However, the vocalization may be reconstructed as /-āmi/ in the nominative (such as malkāmi "two kings") and /-ēmi/ for the genitive and accusative (e.g. malkēmi). For the construct state, it is /-ā/ and /-ē/ respectively.
Plural
Ugaritic has only regular plurals (i.e. no broken plurals). Masculine absolute state plurals take the forms /-ūma/ in the nominative and /-īma/ in the genitive and accusative. In the construct state they are /-ū/ and /-ī/ respectively. The female afformative plural is /-āt/ with a case marker probably following the /-t/, giving /-ātu/ for the nominative and /-āti/ for the genitive and accusative in both absolute and construct state.
Adjectives
Adjectives follow the noun and are declined exactly like the preceding noun.
Personal pronouns
Independent personal pronouns
Independent personal pronouns in Ugaritic are as follows (some forms are lacking because they are not in the corpus of the language):
- 3rd person independent pronouns can occur in the genitive or accusative but are suffixed with a /-t/.
Suffixed (or enclitic) pronouns
Suffixed (or enclitic) pronouns (mainly denoting the genitive and accusative) are as follows:
- -nī is used for the nominative, i.e. following a verb denoting the subject.
Numerals
The following is a table of Ugaritic numerals:
- Segert, Stanislav (1984). A Basic Grammar of Ugaritic Language. University of California Press. p. 53. ISBN 9780520039995.
- Ibid., p. 54
Ordinals
The following is a table of Ugaritic ordinals:
- These are reconstructed for the imperfect simple active pattern (G stem).
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Sample Text
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See also
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Notes
- Ugaritic text does not include many vowels which would have been present in spoken language
References
Further reading
External links
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