Ugaritic language

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Ugaritic
Spoken in:	ancient Ugarit
Language extinction:	12th century BC
Language family:	Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Semitic Central Semitic Northwest Semitic Ugaritic
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	`uga`
ISO/FDIS 639-3:	`uga`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

The Ugaritic language is only known in the form of writings found in the lost city of Ugarit in Syria since its discovery by French archaeologists in 1928. It has been extremely important for scholars of the Old Testament in clarifying Hebrew texts and has revealed more of how Judaism used common phrases, literary idioms, and expressions employed by surrounding pagan cultures.

Ugaritic was "the greatest literary discovery from antiquity since the deciphering of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform". Literary texts discovered at Ugarit include the "Legend of Keret", the "Aqhat Epic" (or "Legend of Danel"), the "Myth of Baal-Aliyan", and the "Death of Baal", all revealing a Canaanite mythology.

Ugaritic was a Semitic language written in cuneiform that was adapted for use as an alphabet. This Ugaritic alphabet, among the oldest that has been discovered, is different from all other cuneiform writings insofar as it is an alphabet rather than a syllabary. The so-called long alphabet has 30 different letters, while the short alphabet has 22. (See the Ugaritic alphabet for an illustration.) To the casual observer, it appears very similar in appearance to Akkadian or Assyrian writing.

The Ugaritic language is attested in texts from the 14th through the 12th century BC. The city was destroyed in 1180/70 BC.

Ugaritic was used by a Canaanite culture, and the use of the term 'Canaanite' to refer to the Ugaritic language is sometimes found. It is closely related to the Canaanite languages. However, from the perspective of linguistic taxonomy, it is not viewed as a Canaanite language mainly because of the absence of the Canaanite ā → ō shift; rather, it is a close relative of the proto-language from which the languages termed Canaanite descend, and was spoken at about the same time as that language.

[edit] References

Gordon, Cyrus Herzl (1965). The Ancient Near East. W.W. Norton & Company Press. ISBN 393002756. at p. 99.
One edition of the mythological texts is Gibson, John C.L. (1977). Canaanite Myths and Legends. T. & T. Clark. ISBN 0-567-02351-6. This contains Latin-alphabet transliterations of the Ugaritic texts and facing translations in English.
A much more affordable and up-to-date edition of many of the Ugaritic texts (including introductions, transcriptions, English translations, and notes) is Parker, Simon B. (editor) (1997). Ugaritic Narrative Poetry: Writings from the Ancient World Society of Biblical Literature. Atlanta: Scholars Press. ISBN 0-7885-0337-5.
The most recent and also the most extensive dictionary of the Ugaritic language in English is: del Olmo Lete, Gregorio; & Sanmartín, Joaquín (2004). A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition. Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 90-04-13694-0. (2 vols), (originally in Spanish, translated by W.G.E. Watson).
Grammars: The most complete grammar presently available is: J. Tropper, Ugartische Grammatik, AOAT 273, Münster, Ugarit Verlag, 2000. A more concise grammar: Sivan, Daniel (1997). A Grammar of the Ugaritic Language (Handbook of Oriental Studies/Handbuch Der Orientalistik). Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 90-04-10614-6..