Ugaritic
Ugaritic is an extinct Northwest Semitic language known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeologists in 1928 at Ugarit, including several major literary texts, notably the Baal cycle. The script is described as “a special alphabetic Cuneiform,” reflecting an idiom related to Canaanite and Hebrew languages.
Like Hebrew the short script of Ugarit has twenty-two characters: nearly identical to Hebrew in terms of their phonetic values if not in terms of the visual elements or media of their inscription. Early samples of Hebrew are scratched on stone or potsherds whereas Ugaritic is punched on clay, like cuneiform.
A scholar of the period hailed Ugaritic as "the greatest literary discovery from antiquity since the deciphering of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform.”
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.Literary texts discovered at Ugarit include the Legend of Keret or Kirta, the legends of Danel, 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 actually referring to Danel, a hero from the Ugaritic Tale of Aqhat.
Phonology
Ugaritic had 28 consonantal phonemes and eight vowel phonemes : 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:
Writing system
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. With other consonants one can often guess the unwritten vowel, and thus vocalize the text, from parallel cases with an aleph, texts where Ugaritic words are written in Akkadian cuneiform syllables, comparison with other West-Semitic languages, for example Hebrew and Arabic, generalized vocalization rules, and, in poetry, parallellisms are also helpful to interpret the consonantal skeleton.Although it appears similar to Mesopotamian cuneiform, 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. The so-called "long alphabet" has 30 letters while the "short alphabet" has 22. Other languages 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
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, three cases for nouns and adjectives ; three numbers: ; and verb aspects similar to those found in other Northwest Semitic languages. The word order for Ugaritic is verb–subject–object, possessed–possessor, and noun–adjective. 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 and subject–object–verb, possessed–possessor, and noun–adjective. Ugaritic is considered a conservative Semitic language, since it retains most of the phonemes, [Grammatical case|the grammatical cases|case system], and the word order of the ancestral Proto-Semitic language.
Word order
The word order for Ugaritic is Subject Verb Object, Verb Subject Object, possessed–possessor, and noun–adjective.Morphology
Ugaritic, like all Semitic languages, exhibits a unique pattern of stems consisting typically of "triliteral", or 3-consonant consonantal roots, 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
Introduction
Ugaritic verbs are based on mostly three-literal roots . For example, RGM, ‘to say’. By adding prefixes, infixes, and suffixes, and varying the vowels, the various verbal forms are formed..Verbs can take several of a dozen stem patterns, or binyanim, that change the basic meaning of the verb, and make it for example passive, causative, or intensive. The basic form is the G stem.
The verbal forms for each stem can be divided in five verbal form groups:
- the suffix conjugation, also called qtl, or Perfect;
- the prefix conjugation, also called yqtl, or Imperfect;
- imperatives;
- two different infinitives;
- an active and a passive participle.
- in the qtl : qatala, qatila, or qatula ;
- in the yqtl : yiqtalu, yaqtilu, or yaqtulu.
Ugaritic verbs can have several moods, both indicative and injunctive. Moods are most clearly visible in the prefix conjugation.
Suffix conjugation
The suffix conjugation has perfective aspect. Taking the root RGM as an example, ragama may be translated as “he says”, or “he has said”.The vowel between the second and third root consonant can be -a-, -i-, or -u-. Most verbs describe an activity and have -a-. Verbs describing a state or property have -i- or -u-.
The paradigm of the suffix conjugation is as follows for the a-verb RGM, the i-verb ŠB‘, and the u-verb MRṢ :
Prefix conjugation
The prefix conjugation yqtl- takes three forms: yiqtal-, yaqtil-, and yaqtul-. The specific pattern is determined by the stem consonants. Therefore, there is no simple one-on-one relation with the three qtl vowel patterns, qatal, qatil, and qatul, because the qtl vowel pattern depends not on the consonant pattern, but on a verb's meaning.For example, the following three verbs all have a qtl of the qatal type, but their yqtl patterns differ:
The Imperfect paradigms for the three patterns are as follows, for the verbs RGM, “to say”, Š’iL, “to ask”, and YRD, “to go down” :
The prefix conjugation takes four or five different endings. There are three clear moods. The so-called energic forms, yqtln, with an -n suffix, apparently have the same meaning as the shorter forms without the -n suffix.
| Form | Name | Mood | Tense | Aspect | Example | Translation | Notes |
| yqtlu | Imperfect | Indicative | Present - Future | imperfective | yargumu | “he says, will say” | |
| yqtlu | Imperfect | Indicative | Past | continued action | yargumu | “he used to say, is wont to say” | |
| yqtl | ‘short form’ | Indicative | Past | imperfective | yargum | “he said” | |
| yqtl | ‘short form’ | Jussive | — | — | yargum | “may he say, let him say” | |
| yqtla | Volitive | Volitive | — | — | yarguma | “may he say, he shall say” | |
| yqtln | Energic | Jussive | — | — | yarguman | “may he say” | |
| yqtln | Energic #2 | Indicative | Past | imperfective | yargumun | “he said, says” | existence doubted |
Imperative
The imperative probably takes three forms, qatal, qutul, and *qitil, where the vowels correspond with the vowels in the imperfect.Examples :
Participles
The paradigm of the active participle of G stems is as follows :| Singular | masculine | māliku | “reigning ” |
| Singular | feminine | maliktu | “reigning ” |
| Plural | masculine | malikūma | “reigning ” |
| Plural | feminine | mālikātu | “reigning ” |
The passive participle is quite rare. There seem to be two forms :
Other stems than the G stem form their participles by means of a m- prefix; for example mulaḫḫišu, mušamṭiru.
Infinitives
Like other Semitic languages, Ugaritic has two infinitives, the infinitive absolute and the infinitive construct. However, in Ugaritic the two have an identical form. The usual form is halāku, but a few verbs use an alternative form *hilku, for example niģru, “to guard”.The infinitive absolute is often used preceding a perfect or imperfect verbal form, to put emphasis on that following verbal form. Such an infinive absolute may be translated as “verily, certainly, absolutely”. For example, halāku halaka, “he certainly goes”. An isolated infinitive absolute may also be used instead of any perfect, imperfect, or imperative verbal form.
The infinitive construct is often used after the prepositions l and b : bi-ša’āli “in asking, by asking, while asking”.
Weak Verbs
In Ugaritic, "weak verbs" are verbs whose roots contain a weak consonant, that is, a consonant that may disappear in some forms, or change into another consonant. Weak consonants are w and y, and also n, h, and in one case l, if these are the first root consonant. Weak 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 yrd, “to go down”, is a weak verb: its imperative is rd /rid/ “go down!”, without the y consonant. The verb hlk, “to go”, has the imperative lk /lik/ “go!”, without the h. Due to their weak consonants, weak verbs can undergo phonetic changes, such as the assimilation of waw to yod, especially in the absence of an intervening vowel. This characteristic impacts the verb's inflection, resulting in variations that are atypical compared to regular verbs.
In Ugaritic there also exist "doubly weak verbs", which contain two weak consonants.
Patterns (stems)
Ugaritic verbs occur in about a dozen reconstructed patterns or binyanim :| Hebrew equivalent | Verb | Perfect | Imperfect | Imperative | Infinitive | Participle | |
| G stem | qal | “to say” | ragama, “he says, said” | yargumu, “he will say, said, used to say” | rugum, “say!” | ragāmu, “to say” | rāgimu, “saying; one who says” |
| Gp stem | qal passive | “to be said” | rugima | yurgamu | — | ? | ragūmu / ragimu |
| C stem | — | MLK, “to reign” → “to enthrone” | — | yamliku | — | — | — |
| Gt stem | — | “to speak to oneself” | ʼirtagama | yartagamu | ʼirtagim | ? | ? |
| N stem | niphʻal | “to speak to each other; to be said” | nargama | yirragimu | ? | nargamu | nargamu |
| D stem | piʻʻel | “to speak loudly” | raggima | yaraggimu | raggim | ruggamu | muraggimu |
| Dp stem | puʻʻal | “to be said loudly” | ruggima | yuraggamu | — | ? | muraggamu |
| tD stem | hithpaʻʻel | “to speak loudly to oneself” | taraggima | yataraggimu | taraggim | ? | ? |
| L stem | pôlel | RWM, “to raise up” | ? | yarāmimu | rāmim | ? | murāmimu |
| Lp stem | pôlal | RWM, “to be raised up” | ? | yurāmamu | — | ? | murāmamu |
| Š stem | hiphʻil | “to make someone speak” | šargima | yašargimu | šargim | šurgamu | mušargimu |
| Šp stem | hophʻal | “to be made to speak” | šurgima | yušargamu | — | ? | mušargamu |
| Št stem | hištaph‘al | “to make someone speak to himself” | ʼištargima | yištargimu | ? | ? | muštargimu |
| R stem | — | KRKR, “to twiddle one's fingers” | karkara | yakarkaru | ? | ? | ? |
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Nouns and adjectives
Paradigm
Nouns in their basic form end in -u. Nominal forms are categorized according to their inflection into: cases, state, gender, and number.Here is the full paradigm for a masculine substantive and a feminine substantive.
Note : with lengthening of the final vowel of the stem: malkat- > malkāt-.
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. After prepositions as a rule the genitive is used. The accusative is also used adverbially and as a kind of locative. More often, a locative is formed by appending a suffix -h to the accusative: ’arṣu, “earth”, accusative ’arṣa, locative ’arṣah, “earthward”. There is no dative; instead the preposition lê, “to, for”, + genitive is used.As in Arabic, some exceptional nouns 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.The construct state indicates that a noun is closely linked to the following noun. For example, “the house of the king” could in Ugaritic in principle be expressed in two ways:
1. “the house” “of the king”. This might be called the ‘Latin’ way of expression ;
2. “the house of” “the king”. This might be called the ‘Hebrew’ way of expression.
The construct state is also the basic form used when a personal pronoun is suffixed: malakūma = “ kings” > malakū > malakūhu = “his kings”; similarly malakĩhu = “ his kings”.
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-. /-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 /-āma/ or /-āmi/ in the nominative and /-êma/ or /-êmi/ for the genitive and accusative. For the construct state, it is /-ā/ and /-ê/ respectively.Plural
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. There are a few irregular plurals; for example bt, “house”, plural bhtm ; and bn, “son”, plural banūma.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.Pronouns
Independent personal pronouns
Independent personal pronouns in Ugaritic are as follows :Suffixed (or enclitic) personal pronouns
Suffixed pronouns are as follows:Other pronouns
The relative pronoun is d, “that of, of which”; often simply translatable as “who, which”. It introduces a specification, property, or action by the subject and is congruent with the governing noun. Declension: dī, dā; feminine dt ; plural dt.The demonstrative pronouns are hnd, “this”, and hnk “that”. Extended forms are hanadūna, hanadūti, hanamati.
Interrogative pronouns are my “who?”, and mh “what?”.
Indefinite pronouns seem to be derived from the interrogative pronoun by appending to them the particles -n-, -k, and/or -m. Thus, for example: mnkm and mnm “anyone, someone”, mhkm and mnm “anything, something, whatever”.
Numerals
The following is a table of Ugaritic numerals :Numerals are declined just like other nouns, for example ʼarbaʻu : genitive ʼarbaʻi, accusative ʼarbaʻa.
Ordinals
The following is a table of Ugaritic ordinals. The vocalisations are very uncertain:| Number | written as | vocalisation |
| 1st | pr‘ or ’aḥd | parī‘u or ’aḥḥīdu |
| 2nd | ṯn | ṯanû |
| 3rd | ṯlṯ | ṯalīṯu |
| 4th | rbʻ | rabīʻu |
| 5th | ḫmš | ḫamīšu |
| 6th | ṯdṯ | ṯadīṯu |
| 7th | šbʻ | šabīʻu |
| 8th | ṯmn | ṯamīnu |
| 9th | tšʻ | tašīʻu |
| 10th | ‘šr | ‘ašīru |
Particles
Among particles in Ugaritic the so-called enclitic particles deserve special note, especially -n and -m. These particles do not seem to change the meaning of words, but create confusion between different forms, and thus complicate the analysis and interpretation of words, in particular verbal forms. For example, rgmtm can be ragamtumu, “you say”, but it can also be ragamtu-ma, an extension of ragamtu, “I have said”. And mlkm, can be the plural malkûma, “kings”, but it can also be an extended singular, malku-ma, “the king”.The enclitic particles can be stacked on top of each other. An extreme example is hnny, “behold!, here is”, that is analyzed as a four-step extension of the presentative particle h : hnny = ha + -n + -na + -ni + -ya. h and hnny have the same meaning, “behold!, here is”.
Poetic techniques
Techniques often encountered in Ugaritic poetry are repetition, parallellisms, chiasms, and what might be called ‘numerical stairs’.An example of repetition is in a part of the Ba‘al myth cycle, where Ba‘al’s fight with the Sea god Yammu is described. Divine artisan Kothar makes a magic mace for Ba‘al and, speaking to the mace, instructs it what to do:
| Ugaritic | vocalized | English |
| hlm. ktp zbl ym bn ydm / ṭ. nhr | hulum katipa zabūli Yammi, bêna yadêma ṭāpiṭi Nahari | “Strike! the shoulder of Prince Yammu!, between the arms of Ruler Naharu!” |
The phrase is repeated, with subtle variation, to describe the fight:
| ylm. ktp. zbl ym. bn ydm ṭpṭ / r | yallumu katipa zabūli Yammi, bêna yadêma ṭāpiṭi Nahari | It struck the shoulder of Prince Yammu, between the arms of Ruler Naharu. |
When the fight ends in a draw, Kothar makes a second mace for Ba‘al. This mace too is instructed:
| hlm. qdq/. zbl ym. bn. ‘nm. ṭpṭ. nhr | hulum qudquda zabūli Yammi, bêna ‘ênêma ṯāpiṭi Nahari | “Strike! the head of Prince Yammu!, between the eyes of Ruler Naharu!” |
The fight is then described thus:
| ylm. qdqd. zbl / bn. ‘nm. ṭpṭ. nhr | yallumu qudquda zabūli Yammi, bêna ‘ênêma ṯāpiṭi Nahari | It struck the head of Prince Yammu, between the eyes of Ruler Naharu. |
This time Ba‘al indeed succeeds in killing Yammu.
In the quoted section several parallellisms may be noted: “shoulder” // “between the arms”; “head” // “between the eyes”; “Prince” // “Ruler”; and Yammu // Naharu.
An example of a chiasm is :
| knp. nšrm / b‘l. yṯbr | kanapē našrīma Ba‘lu yaṯbur | “The vultures’ wings may Ba‘al break, |
| b‘l. yṯbr. d’iy / hmt | Ba‘lu yaṯbur di’ya humutu | may Ba‘al break their flying!” |
‘Numerical stairs’ or ‘progressions of numbers’ are of the form “N ''X, N+1 Y''”, or “100 X, 1000 Y”. An example, where the huge size of Kirta’s army is portrayed:
| hlk. l’alpm. ḫḏḏ | halakū li-’alpīma ḪḎḎ | They will go in thousands, a downpour, |
| wlrbt. kmyr | wa-li-ribabāti kama YR | and in ten thousands, like the early rain ; |
| ’aṯr. ṯn. ṯn. hlk | ’aṯra ṯinê ṯinā halakū | two by two they will go, |
| ’aṯr. ṯlṯ. klhm | ’aṯra ṯalāṯi kullūhumū | by three, all together. |
Sample Texts
Here is a fragment from the epic “Baal” cycle.Ba‘al, son of Supreme God El, has rebelled, he wants a palace of his own. After some blackmail - Ba‘al withholds his rain from the land - El agrees. Ba‘al's sister Anat brings him the good news:
| Ugaritic | vocalized | English |
| ṣḥq. btlt. ‘nt. tš’u | ṣaḥāqu batūltu ‘Anatu ; tišša’u | Maiden Anat laughed, she raised |
| gh. w tṣḥ. tbšr b‘l | gâha wa-taṣīḥu : tabaššir Ba‘lu ; | voice and cried out: “Receive the good news, Baal! |
| bšrtk. yblt. y | bašūrtūka yabiltu ; yû | Good news for you I bring; there will be gi |
| bt. lk. km. ’aḫk. w ḥẓr | bêtu lêka kamā ’aḫḫûka, wa-ḥaẓiru | to you a house like your brothers, and a court |
| km. ’aryk. ṣḥ. ḫrn | kamā ’aryuka. ṣiḥ ḫarrāna | like your clansmen. Call a caravan |
| b bhtk. ‘ḏbt. b qrb | bi bahatīka, ‘ḎBT bi qirbi | into your houses, supplies into |
| hklk. tblk. ġrm | hēkalika ; tabilūka ġūrūma | your palace; the mountains will bring you |
| m’id. ksp. gb‘m. mḥmd | ma’da kaspa, gab‘ūma maḥmada | much silver, the hills desirable |
| ḫrṣ. w bn. bht. ksp | ḫurāṣa, wa-banā bahātī kaspi | gold, and build houses of silver |
| w ḫrṣ. bht. ṭhrm | wa-ḫurāṣi, bahātī ṭuḥūrīma | and gold, houses of pure |
| ’iqn’im | ’iqn’īma | lapis lazuli.” |
From a list describing the organization of wine deliveries for royal sacrificial rites. Wine is to be consumed when...:
| k t‘rb ‘ṯtrt sd bt mlk k t‘rbn ršpm bt mlk | kî ta‘rubu ‘Aṯtaratu-Sadi bêta malki, kî ta‘rubūna Rašapūma bêta malki | “... when Athtart of the Field enters the house of the king, when the Reshaphim enter the house of the king ” |
From a letter :
| nqmd mlk ’ugrt ktb spr hnd | Niqmaddu malku ’Ugarīti kataba sipra hānādū | “Niqmaddu, king of Ugarit, has written this document.” |
From a “contract” :
| l ym hnd ’iwrl pdy ’agdn | le-yômi hānādū ’Iwrikallu padaya ’Agdena | “From this day, Iwrikallu has redeemed Agdenu.” |