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

7.1 ORTHOGRAPHY
7
Grammatical Précis
The Ugaritic alphabet consists of 30 cuneiform signs:
} (}a }i }u) b g d d h w z h h˙ t z y k l m n s sì { gí p s q r sû t t.
This order is used in most dictionaries as well as in the glossary of
this primer. Ugaritic school texts (see §2.4.2; Figure 2.1), which
were discovered after Ugaritic scholars had established the above
order, which follows the Hebrew alphabet apart from the additional
letters, used a slightly different order.
The alphabet does not indicate vowels except for the three
aleph-signs. Two of these graphemes (}i }u) occur at the end the
alphabet in school tablets, which suggests that the first aleph sign
(}a) was original and omnivalent and that at a later stage in the
language two symbols were added to differentiate vowels following
a glottal catch (i.e., the aleph). This is an early application of
matres lectionis, orvowel letters. The three alephs reflect the
following vowel (whether short or long), except when the aleph
closes the syllable (i.e., has no following vowel), in which case the
}i-aleph is used.
}a /}a/, as in }alp =/}alpu/ “ox”
}i /}ˆä/, as in rp}im =/raœpi}ˆäma/ “healers” (gen-acc.)
/}eœ/, [