A Primer on Ugaritic: Language, Culture, and Literature - enenuru

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Ugaritic <strong>Primer</strong>
2.6 Ugaritic Alphabet Chart
Modern dictionaries (and the glossary of this book) follow the
order of the Hebrew alphabet plus additions: }a }i }u b g d d hwzh
h˙ t z yklmnssì {gí psqrsû tt.InFigure 2.3, you will find the
alphabetic sign, its Semitic transliteration, and the pronunciation. A
fourth column adds the syllabic Akkadian cuneiform known from
the school text in Figure 2.2 (§2.4.3; KTU 5.14).
It should be noted that the chart in Figure 2.3 standardizes the
shapes of the Ugaritic letters. In the actual tablets, there is
naturally some variation. 4 Although there is some variation of
Ugaritic letter shapes, we have chosen one shape for each letter as
they are most frequently observed on actual tablets. The Ugaritic
font used in Figure 2.3 (and throughout this book) attempts to both
stylize the letters and give some indication of the way that the
Ugaritic alphabet appears on real tablets. Older drawings and
textbooks often have given slightly inaccurate forms or less
common forms of certain letters as the standard form. For example,
the standard form for the letter t in most textbooks and many
drawings is A, even though it usually looks more like the shape i,
which is used in this book. Likewise, the letter { is often shown as
O in many textbooks and drawings, but more often it appears as
o.
4 For an in-depth study of Ugaritic paleography, see John Ellison, “A
Paleographic Study of the Alphabetic Cuneiform Texts from Ras
Shamra/Ugarit” (Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, 2002).