Dots between words in Northwest Semitic inscriptions

Semitic writing systems, such as those used for writing Hebrew, Aramaic, Ugaritic and Phoenician, are well known for the fact that signs for vowels are routinely left out. Have a look at the first line of the first book of the Bible, Genesis 1.1 (text taken from https://tanach.us/ with the vowels and cantillation signs removed), the so-called ‘consonantal’ text:

בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ

This is how this verse would have appeared in antiquity. The vowel points and cantillation marks that we find in Hebrew Bibles today came in in the medieval period (https://tanach.us/):

בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃

As the following transcription of the consonantal text shows, most of the letters correspond to consonants, and the vowels are largely unwritten (the main exception being the /ī/ vowel in rˀšyt = /rēšīt/ “beginning”):

brˀšyt brˀ ˀt ˀlhym hšmym wˀt hˀrṣ

Greek is famous for having taken a Northwest Semitic alphabet and introduced regular vowel writing (see for example Sampson 2015, 104–105). There is some evidence for believing that Greek may not have been the first writing system to introduce regular vowel writing—this honour may belong to Phrygian (see Waal 2020, 114). At any rate, at least from a typological point of view, it is clear that Greek (and Phrygian) writing differs from Northwest Semitic in that if a vowel appears in the spoken language, you have to write it down; in Northwest Semitic, you don’t have to.

Learning Ugaritic and Making Tablets

Since I joined the CREWS Project last November, I’ve been teaching myself Ugaritic. Over the last few weeks I’ve had the chance to put that knowledge to work. It’s traditional among Cambridge’s classical linguists to spend the last term of the academic year learning a language outside the usual repertoire of Greek and Latin. This year it was my turn to lead the group in Ugaritic.

krws and Ugaritic Cuneiform

We’ve talked in the past about the Linear B and Greek alphabetic script in the first two lines of the CREWS logo. Today we’re going to skip ahead and have a look at the last line. This is written in Ugaritic alphabetic cuneiform.

Ugarit was a city on the coast of what’s now northern Syria, not far from the Turkish border. The site was occupied since the Neolithic period, but it’s the Late Bronze Age city of the end of the second millennium BC that we know most about and which has really captured the attention of scholars. In that period, up until its destruction in the early 12^th century BC, Ugarit was a major trading hub, involved in commercial and diplomatic networks stretching from the Aegean to Mesopotamia and beyond. When archaeologists began excavating the site in the early 20^th century, as well as texts in several of the known languages of the period, they found numerous clay tablets in an unknown script.

Reminder: Opportunity to join the CREWS team!

 

Just to remind you that there is a bit more than a week left to submit applications for the second Research Associate post on the CREWS project (deadline 21st November). See more HERE.

CREWS Research Associate Post 2

I am pleased to announce that the job advert for the second Research Associate on the CREWS project has now appeared. You can find all the details here:

University of Cambridge Job Opportunities: Research Associate on the CREWS Project (Fixed Term)

Like the first Research Associate post, this has a fixed term of four years, beginning in March (or at the latest 1st April) 2017. Again the successful applicant will conduct research on a pre-determined aspect of the project, in this case the development of writing systems used to write North West Semitic languages in the second and early first millennia BC. This will involve using a variety of methods to study Ugaritic, Phoenician and related writing systems with a view to developing our understanding of their inception, structure and usage. This may include, for example, comparison of their sign inventories in relation to the phonological systems they represented, analysis of palaeographic variation, typological study of inscribed objects and consideration of features such as alphabetical order and direction of writing.

 

The closing date is 12.00 noon (GMT) on Monday 21st November. Please consult the Further Particulars, which can be found from the page linked to above, for more details on how to apply.

 

We are looking forward to welcoming a new member to the CREWS team!

 

 

 

 

CREWS Research Associate Post

I am pleased to announce that the job advert for the first Research Associate on the CREWS project has gone live today. See here on the Faculty of Classics website:

Faculty of Classics Jobs and Vacancies: Research Associate ‘Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems’ Project (CREWS)

The successful applicant will conduct research on a pre-determined aspect of the project, namely the context of writing in ancient Ugarit, specifically the social and cultural background against which the innovation of a new writing system took place. S/he will also conduct comparative studies, comparing the context of Ugarit with that of other examples of contemporary or near-contemporary written culture (for example in the Near East, Anatolia, Cyprus, the Aegean, Egypt); the choice of comparanda may depend in part on previous research experience. S/he will take up the post on 1^st October 2016 or as soon as possible thereafter, and will work on the project for four years.

 

 

For more information, you may visit the link above or click HERE to visit the University’s job listing.

The closing date for applications is 12.00 noon (BST) on Monday 1^st August 2016.

Alphabetical Order (Again)

Since CREWS started up, the issue of alphabetical order has reappeared a few times, starting with the initial press release, which you can read about in more detail here (CREWS in the Press).

The French magazine article that I linked to last time (here) is also related to the concept of alphabetical order – but did you know that there are two different types of alphabetical order?