Re: Ugaritic Affiliations

On Sep 8, 9:17 am, "Richard Wordingham" <jrw0...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in messagenews:1189134036.477864.214910@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On Sep 6, 6:55 pm, "Richard Wordingham" <jrw0...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Digging around, it seems that there 31 characters representing 28
consonants - three for the glottal stop - 'a, 'i and 'u, and two for s^
(s
hacek), namely Unicode U+1038C UGARITIC LETTER SHIN, and a form 'without
serpent' that is interchangeable with it. (I wouldn't bet on
interchangeability.)
How many times have you been warned about using Unicode documents as a
source for any sort of information at all about writing systems?

Unicode documents are a pretty reliable source of ISO 10646 character names,
which can be useful when there's uncertainty as to which character is meant.
These names are stable - perhaps too stable, as there are infamous examples
where names have been transposed compared to normal usage.

(Only to computer engineers and anyone else who might be in the thrall
of Unicode. To linguists, they usually look ridiculous, not least
because they use English values of the vowel-letters.)

There are 30, not 31, letters in the Ugaritic script, and they
represent the 27 letters of "Proto-Canaanite" plus two extra aleph
letters (when aleph is followed by i or by u) and an extra sibilant
not used in Semitic words.

The best source I have found for the claim of 31 characters is a posting to
ANE by Brian Colless (https://listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/ane/2004-November/015436.html):

<quote>
This table shows that the West Semitic cuneiform alphabet was based on the
pictographs of the West Semitic proto-alphabet.

$ (T) $ O_o $im$: sun (with serpent)

s_ o $ O_o $im$: sun (without serpent)
</quote>

He gave references to his published drawings of the 'pictographic signs'.

There are (under the most generous analysis, that of Gordon Hamilton
2006) 27 proto-alphabetic signs. Ugaritic added three (two alephs and
the third s). I don't know what you could be counting as no. 31 -- the
word divider??

Brian Colless, though prolific, has not attracted any adherents to his
"decipherments" of, inter alia, Byblos hieroglyphs or the Wadi el-Hol
inscriptions.

So, what is the status of this reported 31st letter? Glyph variant? I
tried looking through the Unicode archives to see if there was any
discussion of it, but I could find none. What does this form look like? Is
the image shown athttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugaritic_scriptwith the
label šinš correct? I see that the Wiki page has illegitimately assumed
that it has an encoding in Unicode. There is at present not even a proposal
to add it.

Just one more reason not to bother with wikipedia!

Did you look, for instance, in WWS? or any Ugaritic grammar -- Gordon,
Segert, Sivan, Tropper magna, Tropper parva? or the Woodard
encyclopedia, or the Hetzron volume?

Peter Daniels wrote of Arabic and Ugaritic, 'Their consonant inventories are
in fact identical'. What is the basis for equating SSU with Arabic dad? Or
is it some other Ugaritic letter that is being equated with dad?

Do we know what Mesopotamian cuneiform syllabograms were used for Ugaritic
SSU in Hurrian? Frank Zeeb's report of Tropper's belief as to its phonetic
significance and the account of Hurrian in WWS suggests that they were SA,
SI and SU.

Who's Frank Zeeb? Is the use of SA/SI/SU for third-s different from
the cuneiform equivalents of the other s's?

For syllabic texts at Ugarit, consult John Huehnergard's dissertation,
pub. as HSS 32 (1987).

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Ugaritic Affiliations
    ... hacek), namely Unicode U+1038C UGARITIC LETTER SHIN, and a form ... abecedaries that have been excavated at Ugarit? ... was added for Hurrian and is not used in Ugaritic ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Ugaritic Affiliations
    ... Unicode documents are a pretty reliable source of ISO 10646 character names, which can be useful when there's uncertainty as to which character is meant. ... Peter Daniels wrote of Arabic and Ugaritic, 'Their consonant inventories are in fact identical'. ... Or is it some other Ugaritic letter that is being equated with dad? ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Ugaritic Affiliations
    ... >> hacek), namely Unicode U+1038C UGARITIC LETTER SHIN, and a form ... Normal SHIN with the left-hand wedge omitted? ... SSU in Hurrian? ...
    (sci.lang)