Ugaritic alphabet - Definition and Overview

The Ugaritic alphabet is a cuneiform consonant alphabet (abjad), used from around 1300 BC for the Ugaritic language, an extinct Canaanite language discovered in Ugarit. It has 30 distinct letters. Other languages (particularly Hurrian) were occasionally written in it in the Ugarit area, although not elsewhere.

Clay tablets written in Ugaritic are the earliest known evidence of th semitic ordering of letters that eventually gave the order of letters in the Greek and Latin alphabets.

Letters

𐎀 ʾa Alpa
𐎁 b Beta
𐎂 g Gamla
𐎃 ẖ Kha
𐎄 d Delta
𐎅 h Ho
𐎆 w Wo
𐎇 z Zeta
𐎈 ḥ Hota
𐎉 ṭ Tet
𐎊 y Yod
𐎋 k Kaf
𐎌 š Shin
𐎍 l Lamda
𐎎 m Mem
𐎟 ḏ Dhal
𐎐 n Nun
𐎑 ẓ Zu
𐎒 s Samka
𐎓 ʿ Ain
𐎔 p Pu
𐎕 ṣ Sade
𐎖 q Qopa
𐎗 r Rasha
𐎘 ṯ Thanna
𐎙 ġ Ghain
𐎚 t To
𐎛 ʾi I
𐎜 ʾu U
𐎝 s₂ Su
𐎞 (unassigned)
𐎟 word divider

Ugaritic in Unicode

In Unicode, the Ugaritic alphabet is assigned to U+10380 - U+1039F.

External link

• Ugaritic (http://ancientscripts.com/ugaritic.html) (ancientscripts.com)
• Ugaritic Cuneiform (http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U10380.pdf) characters from the Unicode Ugaritic cuneiform script.
• Ugaritic cuneiform (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ugaritic.htm) Omniglot entry on the subject.