Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Trevor Peterson <06PETERSON AT cua.edu>]

>===== Original Message From CS Bartholomew <jacksonpollock AT earthlink.net>
=====
>Anyone familiar with this title?
>
>Huehnergard, John   
>Ugaritic Vocabulary in Syllabic Transcription
>Publisher:  Harvard Semitic Museum
>
Relatively. Texts at Ugarit include some written in the NWS language we call
Ugaritic, using the local wedge-adaptation of the West Semitic writing system,
and others written in Akkadian cuneiform. Ugaritic employs a basically
Phoenician orthography, which means that the evidence for vowels is virtually
nil. (The exception is that there are three alefs, which pretty much everyone
agrees have to do with the adjacent vowels, although there is some difference
of opinion as to exactly what.) We can try to reconstruct vocalizations by
comparing with related languages, but the only native evidence that we have
(apart from the alefs) is in Ugaritic vocabulary that we find embedded in the
Akkadian texts. This book is the most thorough presentation of the evidence.
Alternatively, you can get the del Olmo dictionary, which I believe always
cites Huehnergard's syllabic evidence, if there is any. (I assume the English
revision does as well, but I haven't seen it.)

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics