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

Letters 43
Since the Ugaritian scribes wrote in both languages, the forms of
the dominant Akkadian epistolary style no doubt helped shaped the
Ugaritic style.
The complete and fragmentary letters in alphabetic cuneiform
share a basic tripartite structure: Heading, Main Message, and
Ending. One may nuance this arrangement by identifying the
smaller components within each of these larger units of the texts.
The Heading includes the title proper and a salutation, which
may include the use of kinship terms to indicate respect. Two
variations of the ordering of the Heading occur in these letters. We
designate them Type I and Type II. Of particular import is the
recognition that when the addressee occurs first in the Heading
(Type I) we may assume that this party receiving the letter is
superior to the one sending it. Often, to confirm this observation,
one notes that this form of letter includes a formula of obeisance.
Type I
Addressee (Prepositional phrase)
rugum (Basic imperative)
tahmu (Heading Noun “word”) 4
Sender (Descriptive phrase)
Type II
tahmu (Heading Noun “word”)
Sender (Descriptive phrase)
Addressee (Prepositional phrase)
rugum (Basic imperative)
4 This particle regularly introduced the sender of an Akkadian correspondence
from the OB Period on. But in the Canaanite letters of El Amarna, umma is
bound to a genitive, which indicates that umma was as a substantive with the
meaning “word, message, saying” like the Ugaritic th¸m. See A. F. Rainey,
Canaanite in the Amarna Tablets, 174–180.