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Ugaritic alphabet

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Ugaritic
The Ugaritic writing system
Script type
Period
c. 1400 – c. 1190 BCE
DirectionLeft-to-right Edit this on Wikidata
LanguagesUgaritic, Hurrian, Akkadian
Related scripts
Parent systems
ISO 15924
ISO 15924Ugar (040), ​Ugaritic
Unicode
Unicode alias
Ugaritic
U+10380–U+1039F
 This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

The Ugaritic alphabet is a consonantal alphabet (abjad) that was written using the same tools as those used to write cuneiform (i.e. pressing a wedge-shaped stylus into a clay tablet). It was mostly written from left to right, but not exclusively. It emerged c. 1400[1] or 1300 BCE[2] to write Ugaritic, an extinct Northwest Semitic language and fell out of use amid the Late Bronze Age collapse c. 1190 BCE. The inscriptions found provide the earliest evidence in history of systematic and large-scale administrative use of an alphabetical writing system.

The discovery of abecedaries in the Ugaritic alphabet also provide the earliest direct evidence of not just the "abc" alphabetical order but also the "hlḥm" order. Examples of scripts that have also used these are the Phoenician, Paleo-Hebrew, Aramaic square script, Syriac, Greek and Latin alphabets for the "abc" order as well as the Geʽez script from which Amharic was adapted for the "hlḥm". Many if not most alphabets in use today order their letters in one of these two traditions.

The Ugaritic alphabet has 30 letters. The Arabic, Ancient North Arabian and Ancient South Arabian scripts are the only other Semitic alphabets which have letters for all or almost all of the 29 commonly reconstructed Proto-Semitic consonant phonemes. Other languages, particularly Hurrian, were occasionally written in the Ugaritic script in the area around Ugarit, but not elsewhere. The script was also sparsely used to write Akkadian but alphabetically. Although the Ugaritic alphabet is considered fully deciphered, a significant minority of terms written in it remain etymologically uncertain at best and do not always appear to belong to any Semitic language.

The script was first discovered in 1928 at the site of ancient Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra, Syria).

Letters

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Ugaritic alphabet

Below is an introductory table to Ugaritic letters when compared to similar and better-known scripts. This method of comparison is not exact but can be helpful for first-time readers. Note that the table is not ordered in any of the alphabetical orders found at Ugarit (and which are discussed later in this article). Also note that no direct evidence for Ugaritic letter names has been found other than partial abecedaries showing Akkadian cuneiform counterparts[3].

Letter[4] Phoneme IPA Corresponding letter in[5]
Phoen. OSA Aramaic Arabic Hebrew
𐎀 ả (ʾa) [ʔa] 𐤀 𐩱 𐡀 ا א
𐎁 b [b] 𐤁 𐩨 𐡁 ب ב
𐎂 g [ɡ] 𐤂 𐩴 𐡂 ج ג
𐎃 ḫ [x] 𐤇 𐩭 𐡇 خ ח
𐎈 ḥ [ħ] 𐩢 ح
𐎄 d [d] 𐤃 𐩵 𐡃 د ד
𐎏 ḏ [ð] 𐤆 𐩹 ذ
𐎇 z [z] 𐩸 𐡆 ز ז
𐎅 h [h] 𐤄 𐩠 𐡄 ه ה
𐎆 w [w] 𐤅 𐩥 𐡅 و ו
𐎉 ṭ [tˤ] 𐤈 𐩷 𐡈 ط ט
𐎑 ẓ [θˤ] 𐤑 𐩼 ظ
𐎕 ṣ [sˤ] 𐩮 𐡑 ص צ
𐎊 y [j] 𐤉 𐩺 𐡉 ي י
𐎋 k [k] 𐤊 𐩫 𐡊 ك כ
𐎒 s [s] 𐤎 𐩯 𐡎 س ס
𐎌 š [ʃ] 𐤔 𐩪 𐡔 ש
𐎘 ṯ [θ] 𐩻 𐡕 ث
𐎚 t [t] 𐤕 𐩩 ت ת
𐎍 l [l] 𐤋 𐩡 𐡋 ل ל
𐎎 m [m] 𐤌 𐩣 𐡌 م מ
𐎐 n [n] 𐤍 𐩬 𐡍 ن נ
𐎓 ʿ [ʕ] 𐤏 𐩲 𐡏 ع ע
𐎙 ġ [ɣ] 𐩶 غ
𐎔 p [p] 𐤐 𐩰 𐡐 ف פ
𐎖 q [q] 𐤒 𐩤 𐡒 ق ק
𐎗 r [r] 𐤓 𐩧 𐡓 ر ר
𐎛 ỉ (ʾi) [ʔi]
𐎜 ủ (ʾu) [ʔu]
𐎝 s₂ [su]
𐎟 word divider 𐤟

Origin

[edit]
Dark green shows the approximate spread of writing by 1300 BCE

At the time the Ugaritic script was in use (c. 1300 – c. 1190 BCE),[6] the city of Ugarit, although not a great imperial centre, was located at the geographic centre of the literate world, among Egypt, Anatolia, Cyprus, Crete, and Mesopotamia. For this reason, the city came into contact with multiple different writing systems each possessing their own set of attributes such as alphabetical order, letter naming conventions, direction of writing or the languages written in them including associated pronunciation of letters.

Cuneiform hypothesis

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Many standard, non-alphabetical Akkadian cuneiform texts were unearthed at Ugarit. The facts that the Ugaritic alphabet is written in cuneiform and that it has been found to overwhemingly follow the same writing direction as other cuneiform systems both support the hypothesis that Ugaritic was directly inspired by a cuneiform system such as Akkadian cuneiform. Moreover, one can argue that Ugaritic glyphs can be easily compared to common Akkadian "equivalents" as exemplified in the table below.

Akkadian Ugaritic
la 𒆷 𐎅 l
ḫu 𒄷 𐎈 ḥ
ma 𒈠 𐎎 m
qu 𒄣 𐎖 q
pa 𒉺 𐎔 p
-a 𒀀 𐎀 a
-u 𒌋 𐎓 ʿ
za 𒍝 𐎇 z
za 𒍝 𐎕 ṣ

Proto-Sinaitic origin hypothesis

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Some have suggested that the Ugaritic alphabet represents some form of the Proto-Sinaitic script,[7] the letter forms distorted as an adaptation to writing on clay with a stylus. It has been proposed in this regard that the two basic shapes in cuneiform, a linear wedge, as in 𐎂, and a corner wedge, as in 𐎓, may correspond to lines and circles in the linear Semitic alphabets: the three Semitic letters with circles, preserved in the Greek Θ, O and Latin Q, are all made with corner wedges in Ugaritic: 𐎉 ṭ, 𐎓 ʕ, and 𐎖 q. Other letters look similar as well: 𐎅 h resembles its assumed Greek cognate E, while 𐎆 w, 𐎔 p, and 𐎘 θ are similar to Greek Y, Π, and Σ turned on their sides.[7]

However one is invited to friendly caution in concluding to a "Phoenician/Hebrew/Proto-Sinaitic" single-source origin of the Ugaritic alphabet. As with all other hypotheses listed in this article, issues arise. In this case:

  1. Out of the many writing systems attested at Ugarit: Phoenician, Paleo-Hebrew and Proto-Sinaitic are not whereas the opposite is true for some sites producing these scripts.
  2. The letters of the Ugaritic alphabet are dated as being older than the letter examples given as supposed influences, not younger. The glyphs that are older are currently undeciphered in their Proto-Sinaitic form.
  3. The hypothesis relies on discarding the existence of other writing systems of the time including some that also resemble Proto-Sinaitic such as the Byblos Syllabary (or discrediting it due to it still being undeciphered).
  4. Excessive attempts at redating other inscriptions are required such as by labelling styles of writing as "archaizing" (another term for a scribe's stylistic imitation of earlier inscriptions to make his own look older than it is).
  5. Some support the hypothesis too strongly in the hopes of confirming their current interpretation of religious texts or to display their political affiliations rather than to make contributions to the field of epigraphy.

Other hypotheses

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In practice and due to the simple and highly abstract nature of Ugaritic characters, it is easy to find graphical similarities and phonological matches with many other scripts of the time. One such example is "y" in hieratic 𓇌 matching Ugaritic 𐎊. Others[who?] have compared its appearance to that of the Cypro-Minoan script. There may also have been a degree of influence from the poorly understood Byblos syllabary attested in the nearby Byblos.[8]

Jared Diamond[9] believes the alphabet was consciously designed, citing as evidence the possibility that the letters with the fewest strokes may also have been the most frequent.

Hugo Cartwright, a Franco-British software engineer, considers the possibility that syllabic compression of the Ugaritic language was a rule of thumb in the design choice of Ugaritic letters but focuses instead on analysing alphabetical order.[10]

Abecedaries

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Two types of abecedaries have been found in the Ugaritic alphabet and were sometimes labelled "North and South Semitic" as they were first found North and South of each other.

The "abc" or "abg"

[edit]

The "abc" or "abg" order is more similar to the one found in Phoenician, Hebrew and Arabic, the earlier, so-called ʾabjadī order, and more distantly, the Greek and Latin alphabets. The table below shows the kind of abecedaries found and is read from left-to-right first and from top-to-bottom second. The letters are given in cuneiform letters as well as their transliteration equivalent below. The abecedaries are laid out in two dimensions to illustrate how they were often written in this way.

𐎀 𐎁 𐎂 𐎃 𐎄 𐎅 𐎆 𐎇 𐎈 𐎉
ʾa b g ḫ d h w z ḥ ṭ
𐎊 𐎋 𐎌 𐎍 𐎎 𐎏 𐎐 𐎑 𐎒
y k š l m ḏ n ẓ s
𐎓 𐎔 𐎕 𐎖 𐎗 𐎘 𐎙 𐎚
ʿ p ṣ q r ṯ ġ t
𐎛
ʾi
𐎜
ʾu
𐎝
s2

The "hlḥm"

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This table is also read from left-to-right first and from top-to-bottom second. And is meant to represent one of those tablets (called RS 88.2215). Note that this abecedary does not have letters b, ʾi, ʾu and s2 although the letter b is usually expected in this kind of order.[11]

𐎅 𐎍 𐎈 𐎎 𐎖 𐎆 𐎌 𐎗
h l ḥ m q w š r
𐎚 𐎒 𐎋 𐎐 𐎃 𐎔 𐎀 𐎓 𐎑
(b) t s k n ḫ p ʾa ʿ ẓ
𐎂 𐎄 𐎙 𐎉 𐎇 𐎏 𐎊 𐎘 𐎕
g d ġ ṭ z ḏ y ṯ ṣ

Alphabetical order

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Beyond the abecedary examples found at Ugarit and listed above, it's worth mentioning that a hieratic ostracon found in an Egyptian tomb may in fact be an older but very partial example of an "abg" and "hlḥm" double-abecedary but this remains a subject of study.

Order proximity between both alphabetical orders as well as comparisons with as-of-yet uncategorized Safaitic abecedaries have been found.[10]

Comparison of the "abg" and "hlḥm"

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Cartwright, describes the closeness in permutation space of two non-Ugaritic abecedaries' orders, one being considered an "abg" order and the other a "hlḥm" order. He achieves this by measuring rank closeness and by considering orders as gap buffered 2D objects.[10][12]

Boustrophedon reading of the Maghrebian abjadi sequence
A B G
W H D
H. Z T.
L K Y
M N S.
D. P O
Q R S
SH TH T
KH Z. DH
GH

When read from top-to-bottom and left-to-right, this Maghrebian abjadi order can be compared to the abecedary Tay 19 found in the oasis of Tayma[13][14].

Comparison of the "abg" and "hlḥm"
mod. Magh. abjadi A W H. L M D. Q SH GH B H Z K N P R TH Z. G D T. Y S. O S T DH KH
Tay 19 A L H. M Q W SH R B T1 S K N GH [S.] S3 [P] [H] [O] D. G D T2 KH

This is further reinforced by how letters S., P, H and O are scratched out in the Tay 19 inscription.

Order proximity with Safaitic orders

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RWQ 67

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In his preprint on ordered set comparisons, Cartwright points out how Safaitic abecedary RWQ 67's order also closely resembles that found at Ugarit.

RWQ 67 reads: l m g ʿ n t b ḫ ḏ q d h ḍ y ẓ ġ f s² r w ṯ ṣ ṭ ḥ s¹ z ʾ k[15]

The following gap buffered table of a "vowel-less" RWQ 67-like can be read from top-to-bottom first. Reading the same table from left-to-right produces an equally vowel-less Ugaritic-like abecedary. This is most visible when swapping the "GH" with the "S Z P H. S. T." sections.

Table 1 resembling both RWQ 67 and the Ugaritic alphabet
G B KH D Z H. T. SH K
L M
N DH Z. S P S. Q R TH GH S2
T
Table 2 resembling both RWQ 67 and the Ugaritic alphabet
G B KH D SH K Z H. T.
L M
N DH Z. GH Q R TH S P S. S2
T

MISSA2 and the Amorite language

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Cartwright also considers the closeness of Safaitic abecedary MISSA2's alphabetical order with various orders including RWQ 67 itself as well as the "abg" Ugaritic alphabet. It can be noted that Nehmé and MacDonald and Al Muʾazzin describe MISSA2 as also grouping Safaitic letters visually which they show with the use of slashes:

MISSA2 reads: t /ṯ y ʾ ṣ\ /b r m\ /l n ḫ h z k\ /ḥ s¹\ /s² ġ f\ /ḍ ṭ\ /ʿ w g\ ḏ d ẓ q[16]

Cartwright underlines high permutation closeness of MISSA2 with the frequency of consonants of the Amorite language used in the "Amorite Bilinguals" published by Krebernik and George. He also found high permutation closeness between MISSA2 and compressed syllabic reconstructions of Ugaritic and Phoenician.

He suggests that the first characters of MISSA2 (t ṯ y ʾ ṣ b r) may play a special role and compares them to y ṣ ʿ s t underlined in the boustrophedon Maghrebian abjadi comparison with Tay 19.

BES20 592 and the "Amorite Bilinguals" read acrostically

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Krebernik and George published a partial acrostic reading of the Amorite Bilinguals which suggests it may have also played the role of some sort of lexicographical inventory similar to the AN = Anum lists. Regardless of this hypothesis, Cartwright found high rank correlation between the acrostic "Amorite Bilinguals" order read in steps of 3 with Safaitic abecedary BES20 592 when reversed.

Name Resulting abecedary
BES20592 ṯ rh ḅn mʿgs¹kḥmlḏrtfġʾṣlnḫ ys²wẓhd/yṭḍ[17]
BES20592 w/o duplicates TH, H, B, N, O, G, S, K, H., M, DH, R, T, P, GH, A, S., L, KH, Y, SH, W, Z. ,D/Y, T, D.
BES20592 w/o duplicates reverse D., T., D/Y, Z., W, SH, Y, KH, L, S., A, GH, P, T, R, DH, M, H., K, S, G, O, N, B, H, TH
"Amorite Bil." with step of 3 D,Y,GH,SH,T.,L,S.,W, A, M, P, T, H., DH, N, K, R, O, G, Q, S, H
"Amorite Bil." read acrostically D, K, A, Y, R, M, GH, O, P, SH, G, T, T., Q, H., L, S, DH, S., H, N, W

Ugaritic short alphabet

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Two shorter variants of the Ugaritic alphabet existed with findspots primarily not in the area of Ugarit. Findspots have included Tel Beit Shemesh, Sarepta, and Tiryns. It is generally found on inscribed objects vs the tablets of the standard Ugaritic alphabet and unlike the standard version it is usually written right to left.[18] Only three tablets have been found, at Tell Sukas, Tell Ta'annek, and Beth Shemesh.[19] One variant contained 27 letters and the other 22 letters. It is not known what the relative chronology of the different Ugaritic alphabets was.[20][21][22]

Function

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The Ugaritic writing system was an augmented abjad. In most syllables only consonants were written, including the /w/ and /j/ of diphthongs. Ugaritic was unusual among early abjads because it also indicated vowels occurring after the glottal stop. It is thought that the letter for the syllable /ʔa/ originally represented the consonant /ʔ/, as aleph does in other Semitic abjads, and that it was later restricted to /ʔa/ with the addition, at the end of the alphabet, of /ʔi/ and /ʔu/.[23][24]

The final consonantal letter of the alphabet, s2, has a disputed origin along with both "appended" glottals, but "The patent similarity of form between the Ugaritic symbol transliterated [s2], and the s-character of the later Northwest Semitic script makes a common origin likely, but the reason for the addition of this sign to the Ugaritic alphabet is unclear (compare Segert 1983: 201–218, Dietrich and Loretz 1988). In function, [s2] is like Ugaritic s, but only in certain words – other s-words are never written with [s2]."[25]

The words that show s2 are predominantly borrowings, and thus it is often thought to be a late addition to the alphabet representing a foreign sound that could be approximated by native /s/; Huehnergard and Pardee make it the affricate /ts/.[26] Segert instead theorizes that it may have been syllabic /su/, and for this reason grouped with the other syllabic signs /ʔi/ and /ʔu/.[27]

Probably the last three letters of the alphabet were originally developed for transcribing non-Ugaritic languages (texts in the Akkadian language and Hurrian language have been found written in the Ugaritic alphabet) and were then applied to write the Ugaritic language.[28] The three letters denoting glottal stop plus vowel combinations were used as simple vowel letters when writing other languages.

The only punctuation is a word divider which is often not used.[citation needed]

Unicode

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Main article: Ugaritic (Unicode block)

Ugaritic script was added to the Unicode Standard in April, 2003 with the release of version 4.0.

The Unicode block for Ugaritic is U+10380–U+1039F:

Ugaritic[1][2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+1038x 𐎀 𐎁 𐎂 𐎃 𐎄 𐎅 𐎆 𐎇 𐎈 𐎉 𐎊 𐎋 𐎌 𐎍 𐎎 𐎏
U+1039x 𐎐 𐎑 𐎒 𐎓 𐎔 𐎕 𐎖 𐎗 𐎘 𐎙 𐎚 𐎛 𐎜 𐎝 𐎟
Notes
1.^As of Unicode version 17.0
2.^Grey area indicates non-assigned code point

Six letters for transliteration were added to the Latin Extended-D block in March 2019 with the release of Unicode 12.0:[29]

  • U+A7BA Ꞻ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER GLOTTAL A
  • U+A7BB ꞻ LATIN SMALL LETTER GLOTTAL A
  • U+A7BC Ꞽ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER GLOTTAL I
  • U+A7BD ꞽ LATIN SMALL LETTER GLOTTAL I
  • U+A7BE Ꞿ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER GLOTTAL U
  • U+A7BF ꞿ LATIN SMALL LETTER GLOTTAL U

See also

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References

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  1. ^ William M. Schniedewind, A Primer on Ugaritic, p. 32
  2. ^ Ugaritic, in The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia
  3. ^ "See Damascus Museum, RS 19.159". Charles Virolleaud, Royal Palace of Ugarit II, Textes en cunéiforme alphabétique des archives est, ouest et centrales, N. 189 (Damascus Museum, RS 19.159).
  4. ^ Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William, eds. (1996). "Epigraphic Semitic Scripts". The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press, Inc. p. 92. ISBN 978-0-19-507993-7.
  5. ^ Kogan, Leonid (2011). "Tab. 6.2: Regular correspondences of the Proto-Semitic consonants". In Weninger, Stefan (ed.). The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 978-3-11-025158-6.
  6. ^ Ugaritic, in The Ancient-Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia
  7. ^ a b Brian Colless, Cuneiform alphabet and picto-proto-alphabet
  8. ^ A Basic Grammar of the Ugaritic Language: With Selected Texts and Glossary, p. 19 by Stanislav Segert, 1985.
  9. ^ Writing Right | Senses | DISCOVER Magazine
  10. ^ a b c Cartwright, Hugo. "Permutation Space Closeness of Ordered Sets".
  11. ^ Bordreuil, Pierre; Pardee, Dennis (1995). "Un abécédaire du type sud-sémitique découvert en 1988 dans les fouilles archéologiques françaises de Ras Shamra-Ougarit - Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres Année 1995 139-3 pp. 855-860".
  12. ^ Hawley, 2008. Apprendre à écrire à Ougarit : une typologie des abécédaires.
  13. ^ Macdonald, 1986
  14. ^ "OCIANA Tay 19".
  15. ^ A. Al-Jallad; M.C.A. Macdonald. "OCIANA RWQ 67".
  16. ^ Macdonald; Al Muʾazzin; Nehmé (1996). "Les inscriptions safaïtiques de Syrie, cent quarante ans après leur découverte". Comptes rendus des séances de l'AIBL: 435–494.
  17. ^ "OCIANA".
  18. ^ [1]Fossé, Cécile, et al., "Archaeo-Material Study of the Cuneiform Tablet from Tel Beth-Shemesh", Tel Aviv 51.1, pp. 3-17, 2024
  19. ^ [2]Töyräänvuori, Joanna, "Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts Outside of Ugarit: Evidence for an Overland Trade Network in the LBA Levant?", Studia Antiqua et Archaeologica 30.2, pp. 243-279, 2024
  20. ^ [3]Ferrara, Silvia, "A ‘top-down’ re-invention of an old form: Cuneiform alphabets in context", Understanding Relations Between Scripts II, pp. 15-51, 2020
  21. ^ Bordreuil, P., "Cunéiformes alphabétiques non canoniques", I. La tablette alphabétique sénestroverse RS 22.03’, Syria 58 (3–4), pp. 301–311, 1981
  22. ^ Dietrich, M. and Loretz, O., "Die Keilalphabete. Die phönizisch kanaanäischen und altarabischen Alphabete in Ugarit", Münster, 1988
  23. ^ Coulmas, Florian (1991). The writing systems of the world. Wiley. ISBN 978-0-631-18028-9.
  24. ^ Schniedewind, William; Hunt, Joel (2007). A primer on Ugaritic. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-46698-1.
  25. ^ Ugaritic, in The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia
  26. ^ Huehnergard, An Introduction to Ugaritic (2012), p. 21; Pardee, Ugaritic alphabetic cuneiform in the context of other alphabetic systems in Studies in ancient Oriental civilization (2007), p. 183.
  27. ^ Stanislave Segert, "The Last Sign of the Ugaritic Alphabet" in Ugaritic-Forschugen 15 (1983): 201–218
  28. ^ Healey, John F. (1990). "The Early Alphabet". Reading the Past: Ancient Writing from Cuneiform to the Alphabet. University of California Press. p. 216. ISBN 0-520-07431-9.
  29. ^ Suignard, Michel (2017-05-09). "L2/17-076R2: Revised proposal for the encoding of an Egyptological YOD and Ugaritic characters" (PDF).
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