Ugaritic

Ugaritic is a Northwest Semitic language, discovered by French archaeologists in 1928 at the site of the ancient city of Ugarit. It is the earliest attested Semitic language, and was spoken in the northern Levant between approximately 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE. The language is documented in cuneiform texts found at Ugarit, as well as in the literature of the ancient Canaanite religion. Ugaritic is a member of the Canaanite subgroup of the Northwest Semitic languages. It is closely related to the other Canaanite languages, such as Hebrew and Phoenician. However, it is more distantly related to other Semitic languages, such as Arabic and Ethiopian. The Ugaritic alphabet is derived from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet, which is also the ancestor of the Phoenician and Greek alphabets. The first alphabetical text in Ugaritic was discovered in 1928, and consisted of 28 letters. Ugaritic was used as a written language for religious texts, as well as for administrative documents and correspondence. The majority of the surviving texts are religious in nature, and include myths, legends, hymns, and prayers. The language is known for its use of poetic devices, such as parallelism and repetition. It also features a unique consonantal alphabet, which includes several letters that are not found in other Semitic languages. Ugaritic is no longer spoken, but it has had a significant influence on other languages. For example, the Ugaritic word for "god", 𐎜𐎚𐎗, is the root of the Hebrew word for "god", אלהים.