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Ugaritic language

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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 gentile 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 — the latter two are also collectively known as the Baal Cycle — all revealing a Canaanite mythology.

Ugaritic was a Semitic language written in cuneiform abjad (consonantal alphabet). To the casual observer, it appears similar to Mesopotamian cuneiform, but was unrelated (see Ugaritic alphabet). It is the oldest example of the family of West Semitic scripts that, with the same structure (though lineform rather than cuneiform), encoded Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic. The so-called long alphabet has 31 letters, while the short alphabet has 22.

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.

The study of Ugaritic is useful for biblical Hebrew scholars because the Ugaritic texts provide an unparalleled glimpse into the life and religious worldview of the ancient Israelites. The vocabulary is amazingly close to biblical Hebrew — many Ugaritic words are letter-for-letter the same as biblical Hebrew. It is the religion of Ugarit, however, that is especially important to Old Testament scholarship, since Ugaritic is the ancient language of one of Israel’s closest neighbors, the modern village of Ras Shamra, located in what is now Syria.

Notes

References

  • Gordon, Cyrus Herzl (1965). The Ancient Near East. W.W. Norton & Company Press. ISBN 0-393-00275-6. at p. 99.
  • One edition of the mythological texts isGibson, 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) isParker, 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..
  • Concordance: The concordance of the Ugaritic Data Bank is available in: J-L. Cunchillos and Juan-Pablo Vita, A Concordance of Ugaritic Words Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2003. ISBN 1-59333-258-0.

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