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

Grammatical Précis 153
The bi-labials p and b may vary from language to language in
spelling a common word; e.g., Ugaritic nbsû; Hebrew vpn, “soul,
person” (also note Hebrew/Aramaic lzrb/lzrp “iron”).
7.2.2 Vowels
Reconstruction of vowels is a difficult problem in Ugaritic. Such
reconstruction is an exercise in comparative Semitics. It is
important to recognize that vowels reflects speech and dialect,
which can vary widely because of geography and social context.
The evidence from Ugaritic words written with alephs suggests that
the Proto-Semitic vowel system did not undergo change in Ugaritic,
apart from the contraction of dipthongs and triphthongs (see
below). As in Akkadian, there were probably three short and three
long vowels: /a, aœ, i,ˆä, u,uœ/, but it is probable that shadings of
these basic vowels also occurred (e.g., e, eœ, o, oœ).
The contracted vowels are posited on the basis of syllabic
transcriptions that appear to have been similar to Hebrew (i.e., *aw
> oœ; *ay > eœ ), as opposed to Babylonian Akkadian (i.e., *aw > uœ
and *ay > ˆä). Following the convention of Akkadian, the macron
(i.e., uœ ˆä aœ) marks the contraction of a consonant (i.e., a diphthong),
while the circumflex (i.e., u® ˆî a®) marks the contraction of two
syllables (e.g., a triphthong) into one syllable.
The yod and waw in the PS diphthongs *aw, *ay, *iy, *uw are
contracted in Ugaritic (e.g., mt /*mawtu > moœtu/, “death”; }in
/*}ayna > eœna/, “there is not”; }ik /*}ayka > eœka/, “how?”; bt /*baytu
>beœtu/, “house”). Contraction does not occur when the yod or waw
are doubled (e.g., }ayl =/}ayyalu/, “deer”; ydy =/yaday-ya/, “my
hands”).
Triphthongs are sometimes preserved and in other cases
contracted. 3 No systematic rules govern the behavior of
triphthongs. The final vowel of the triphthong generally is
preserved after contraction; thus, /ayu > -u®/, as in /*sûadayu > sûadu®/,
3 Cf. Huehnergard, Ugaritic Vocabulary, 288–92; D. Sivan, UF 14 (1982),
209–218; idem, UF 16 (1984), 279-93; Sivan, Grammar, 41–43.