Ugaritic alphabet
Ugaritic | ||
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Script type | ||
Time period | from around 1400 BCE | |
Direction | Left-to-right Unicode range | U+10380–U+1039F |
History of the alphabet | ||
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The Ugaritic writing system is a Cuneiform Abjad (consonantal alphabet) with syllabic elements used from around either 1400 BCE[1] or 1300 BCE[2] for Ugaritic, an extinct Northwest Semitic language, and discovered in Ugarit (modern Ras Al Shamra), Syria, in 1928. It has 30 letters. Other languages (particularly Hurrian) were occasionally written in the Ugaritic script in the area around Ugarit, although not elsewhere.
The script was written from left to right. Although cuneiform and pressed into clay, its symbols were unrelated to those of
Function
The Ugaritic writing system was an augmented abjad. In most syllables only consonants were written, including the /w/ and /j/ of diphthongs. However, Ugaritic was unusual among early abjads because it also wrote vowels 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/.[5][6]
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]."[7] 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/.[8] Segert instead theorizes that it may have been syllabic /su/, and for this reason grouped with the other syllabic signs /ʔi/ and /ʔu/.[9]
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.[4] 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.[citation needed]
Origin
At the time the Ugaritic script was in use (c. 1300–1190 BCE),
Abecedaries
Lists of Ugaritic letters (abecedaria, singular
North Semitic
Letter: | 𐎀 | 𐎁 | 𐎂 | 𐎃 | 𐎄 | 𐎅 | 𐎆 | 𐎇 | 𐎈 | 𐎉 | 𐎊 | 𐎋 | 𐎌 | 𐎍 | 𐎎 | 𐎏 | 𐎐 | 𐎑 | 𐎒 | 𐎓 | 𐎔 | 𐎕 | 𐎖 | 𐎗 | 𐎘 | 𐎙 | 𐎚 | 𐎛 | 𐎜 | 𐎝 |
Transliteration: | ʾa | b | g | ḫ | d | h | w | z | ḥ | ṭ | y | k | š | l | m | ḏ | n | ẓ | s | ʿ | p | ṣ | q | r | ṯ | ġ | t | ʾi | ʾu | s2 |
South Semitic
Letter: | 𐎅 | 𐎍 | 𐎈 | 𐎎 | 𐎖 | 𐎆 | 𐎌 | 𐎗 | 𐎚 | 𐎒 | 𐎋 | 𐎐 | 𐎃 | 𐎁 | 𐎔 | 𐎀 | 𐎓 | 𐎑 | 𐎂 | 𐎄 | 𐎙 | 𐎉 | 𐎇 | 𐎏 | 𐎊 | 𐎘 | 𐎕 | [ | 𐎛 | 𐎜 | 𐎝 | ] | ||
Transliteration: | h | l | ḥ | m | q | w | š | r | t | s | k | n | ḫ | b | ś | p | ʾa | ʿ | ẓ | g | d | ġ | ṭ | z | ḏ | y | ṯ | ṣ | [ | ʾi | ʾu | s2 | ] |
Letters
Sign | Trans. | IPA | Phoenician | Hebrew |
---|---|---|---|---|
𐎀 | ʾa | ʔa | 𐤀 | אַ |
𐎁 | b | b | 𐤁 | ב |
𐎂 | g | ɡ | 𐤂 | ג |
𐎃 | ḫ | x | — | — |
𐎄 | d | d | 𐤃 | ד |
𐎅 | h | h | 𐤄 | ה |
𐎆 | w | w | 𐤅 | ו |
𐎇 | z | z | 𐤆 | ז |
𐎈 | ḥ | ħ | 𐤇 | ח |
𐎉 | ṭ | tˤ | 𐤈 | ט |
𐎊 | y | j | 𐤉 | י |
𐎋 | k | k | 𐤊 | כ |
𐎌 | š | ʃ | 𐤔 | ש |
𐎍 | l | l | 𐤋 | ל |
𐎎 | m | m | 𐤌 | מ |
𐎏 | ḏ | ð | — | — |
𐎐 | n | n | 𐤍 | נ |
𐎑 | ẓ | θˤ | — | — |
𐎒 | s | s | 𐤎 | ס |
𐎓 | ʿ | ʕ | 𐤏 | ע |
𐎔 | p | p | 𐤐 | פ |
𐎕 | ṣ | sˤ | 𐤑 | צ |
𐎖 | q | q | 𐤒 | ק |
𐎗 | r | r | 𐤓 | ר |
𐎘 | ṯ | θ | — | — |
𐎙 | ġ | ɣ | — | — |
𐎚 | t | t | 𐤕 | ת |
𐎛 | ʾi | ʔi | — | — |
𐎜 | ʾu | ʔu | — | — |
𐎝 | s2 | su | — | — |
𐎟 | word divider | 𐤟 | — |
Unicode
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 |
Six letters for transliteration were added to the Latin Extended-D block in March 2019 with the release of Unicode 12.0:[15]
- 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
- Old Persian cuneiform – a much later, unrelated attempt at a cuneiform semi-alphabet.
References
- ^ A Primer on Ugaritic, William M. Schniedewind (pg 32)
- ^ Ugaritic, in The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia
- ^ Ullendorf, Edward (July 1951). "Studies in the Ethiopic Syllabary". Africa: Journal of the International African Institute. 21 (3). Cambridge University Press: 207–217.
- ^ ISBN 0-520-07431-9.
- ^ Coulmas, Florian (1991). The writing systems of the world.
- ^ Schniedewind, William; Hunt, Joel (2007). A primer on Ugaritic.
- ^ Ugaritic, in The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia
- ^ 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.
- ^ Stanislave Segert, "The Last Sign of the Ugaritic Alphabet" in Ugaritic-Forschugen 15 (1983): 201–218
- ^ Ugaritic, in The Ancient-Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia
- ^ a b Brian Colless, Cuneiform alphabet and picto-proto-alphabet
- ^ A Basic Grammar of the Ugaritic Language: With Selected Texts and Glossary, p. 19 by Stanislav Segert, 1985.
- ^ Writing Right | Senses | DISCOVER Magazine
- ^
Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William, eds. (1996). "Epigraphic Semitic Scripts". The World's Writing Systems. ISBN 978-0-19-507993-7.
- ^ Suignard, Michel (2017-05-09). "L2/17-076R2: Revised proposal for the encoding of an Egyptological YOD and Ugaritic characters" (PDF).
External links
- Download a Ugaritic font (includes Unicode font)
- Ugaritic cuneiform characters from the Unicode Ugaritic cuneiform script
- Ugaritic cuneiform Omniglot entry on the subject
- Ugaritic script (ancientscripts.com)
- Ugaritic writing
- GNU FreeFont Unicode font family with Ugaritic range in its sans-serif face.