DOCSLIB.ORG

Josef Tropper. Ugaritische Grammatik. 1056 Pp. Münster, Ugarit-Verlag, 2000

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Josef Tropper. Ugaritische Grammatik. 1056 Pp. Münster, Ugarit-Verlag, 2000 Josef Tropper. Ugaritische Grammatik. 1056 pp. Münster, Ugarit-Verlag, 2000. (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 273). The disadvantage of a dead language attested by a small corpus of texts is that it leaves many lacunae in our knowledge of text-dependent aspects of the culture that are revealed by that language; the advantage for the grammarian is that it permits an exhaustive inclusion of the data in a grammatical description. This T. has done in the volume under review, which explains why one of the more poorly attested of the ancient Near-Eastern languages now boasts one of the thickest grammars. The disadvantageous side for the grammarian wishing to exploit these data exhaustively is that, for many grammatical categories, they are very few, all too often a single datum or none at all. The danger is always lurking, therefore, that any given datum is for one reason or another atypical or misunderstood and that a rule be proposed that in fact has no basis. In a relatively brief time, the author has established himself as one of the principal authorities on the ancient Semitic languages, with forty-nine titles cited under his name in the bibliography, dated from 1989 to 2000, including three important monographs. Though he is familiar with the major Semitic languages, indeed has published on several of them, he has concentrated on the Northwest-Semitic languages and particularly on Ugaritic. His grammatical work has always been of the highest order and all who will in the future have reason to investigate any aspect of Ugaritic grammar will do well to start here. I have one general caveat to state and that has nothing to do with the author's abilities but reflects rather a choice and one with which I have no dispute: in order to write so exhaustive a grammar, the author must have taken a decision on the meaning of every text in the corpus and on every word in every text from which data are cited, something that even someone so obviously brilliant as T. cannot expect to have done so early in his career with equal thoroughness everywhere. This human limitation is exacerbated by the current state of Ugaritic epigraphy, which I have described on various occasions:1 the simple fact that many 1See, for example, my review of the collection of Ugaritic texts by M. Dietrich, O. Loretz, and J. Sanmartín, The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani and Other Places (KTU: Second, Enlarged Edition) (Abhandlungen zur Literatur Alt-Syrien-Palästinas und Mesopotamiens 8; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1995) in JSS 42 (1997) 132-37, and my critique of some of T.'s epigraphic observations with regard to this collection of texts in AuOr 16 (1998) 85-102. The 1995 collection will henceforth be abbreviated CAT; the first edition of this work, which dates to 1976 (Die keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit, Alter Orient und Altes Testament 24/1, Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag), will be referred to here as KTU. T. cites Ugaritic texts only by the numbers assigned to them in KTU and in CAT. New-comers to Ugaritic studies should be aware that new texts were included in CAT; for example, in section 1, texts 162-176 are new in CAT. Moreover, texts already included in KTU sometimes, though quite rarely, have been assigned different line numbers in CAT; the most conspicuous case is perhaps RS 24.251+, of which the recto/verso orientation was reversed in CAT—hence a reader checking a reference to ""1.107'' will not find the text in the same place in KTU as in CAT. For these reasons, I prefer to cite texts that appeared in KTU as ""KTU … ,'' those that were added in CAT as ""CAT … ,'' and to use ""KTU/CAT'' when a point is being made with regard to a feature shared by the two editions. T.'s convention is to cite texts by number only, with the primary reference being to CAT; if he wishes specifically to make a point regarding one edition or the other, he cites them as ""KTU1'' and Archiv für Orientforschung 50 (2003/2004) online version – 2 – of the Ugaritic texts still await an authoritative publication based on autopsy makes it certain that any study such as this one will include faulty data. That does not mean, however, as I said in my first description of the situation, that philological study ""must grind to a halt''2 while the time-consuming work of re-editing the texts goes on. It only means that the author and his readers must not expect perfection. In all honesty, the epigraphic improvements that remain to be made will in all likelihood not affect T.'s understanding of any major aspect of Ugaritic grammar, but will have to do rather with moving pieces of data about and with filling in the picture. Thus I would have been the last to counsel T. to hold off publication of his work until the epigraphic picture were clearer. So thorough a status questionis was needed by all of us who work on Ugaritic, not least the epigraphers, for even the most basic epigraphic work must at times take into consideration both what is known epigraphically and the interpretations that these data have received. I would thus not disagree with T.'s assertion that a grammar such as this one is useful as a ""Grundlage für eine fundierte Übersetzung der inhaltlich schwierigen Texte'' (p. 6), though users must not forget that this grammar, like any other original grammar (as opposed to those that simply feed off of their predecessors—which is certainly not the case here!), is based on the author's own analyses of the texts. The counterpoint to this problem of not having been able to analyze every text with equal thoroughness is that T. has analyzed all the texts from a strictly grammatical perspective and has built up a reservoir of grammatical data previously unequaled. He thus will have grammatical insights, even on texts on which he has spent less time than the epigraphars/philologists, that the latter may not have perceived. This was brought home to me when T. pointed out to me some time ago that the only prefix attested in all prose texts and most texts in poetry for 3 m.pl. /YQTL/3 forms is t-; because both y- and t- forms are attested in poetry, I had assumed that such should be the case in prose as well. But, at least with the present corpus of prose works, such is not the case.4 Thus my first interpretation of yrdn g®rm in RS 24.256:18 (KTU 1.112) as a plural on analogy with t≤rbn g®rm in RS 1.005:9 (KTU 1.43) has had to be modified.5 T.'s work is a descriptive grammar that follows the time-honored pattern: script/writing (""Schriftlehre''), phonetics, morphology (including morpho-syntax), and clause/sentence ""KTU2''; if he wishes to express explicitly that a reading appears in both editions, he cites them as ""KTU1/2.'' 2""New Readings in the Letters of ≤zn bn byy,'' in Vorträge, gehalten auf der 28. Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale in Wien, 6.-10. Juli,1981, AfO Beiheft 19 (1982) 39-53, esp. p. 53 note 22. 3Throughout this review, I will refer to the various verbal forms by use of the root QTL enclosed in slashes, with the necessary specifications for more narrowly defined forms, e.g., /YQTL/ = "prefix-conjugation', /QTLa/ = "suffix-conjugation', /YQTLØ/ = "prefix-conjugation with zero vowel at the end', /yaqtul-/ = "prefix- conjugation with stem vowel /u/ and no specification for mood', etc. Nominal bases will usually be indicated in lower case with the vowel(s) indicating the pattern, e.g., /qatl/ or /qitªl/. 4T., pp. 432-38 (§73.223.3). 5See my Ritual and Cult at Ugarit (Writings from the Ancient World 10; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002) 101 n. 24. Archiv für Orientforschung 50 (2003/2004) online version – 3 – syntax; morphology is presented in five sections, numbered as principal sections, viz., the pronoun, the noun, number words, verbs, and particles. The body of the work consists of an introduction, followed by these eight sections, for a total of nine. Then thirteen indices occupy over 140 pages: general abbreviations, sigla and symbols, literary abbreviations, bibliography, topical index, Ugaritic roots, non-Ugaritic roots, Ugaritic words in alphabetic script, words in syllabic (Sumero-Akkadian) script, text references by KTU/CAT numbers, text references by excavation number (""RS …''—this index is broken down into two sections, one for alphabetic texts, the other for syllabic texts), references to texts not citable by either of the two preceding systems, and, finally, references to texts from other sites. This is, therefore, a reference grammar in the best tradition, with the indices provided to make it useful (though a caveat is necessary on these—see below). One aspect of this book that deserves special praise is the extent to which the data from the administrative texts have been integrated into the grammar. T. is not simply aware of the existence of these texts, but has studied them in detail, has elsewhere already made significant contributions to their interpretation,6 and makes them a major part of this grammar. Gone are the days when a Ugaritic grammar was devoted primarily to the mythological texts. Another source of data exploited significantly here are the syllabic writings of Ugaritic words. The basic work along these lines was done by J. Huehnergard7 and W. H. van Soldt,8 but T. is at pains to include all such data and to draw conclusions from them for Ugaritic phonology.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Copyright © 2014 Richard Charles Mcdonald All Rights Reserved. The
    Copyright © 2014 Richard Charles McDonald All rights reserved. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has permission to reproduce and disseminate this document in any form by any means for purposes chosen by the Seminary, including, without, limitation, preservation or instruction. GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS OF VARIOUS BIBLICAL HEBREW TEXTS ACCORDING TO A TRADITIONAL SEMITIC GRAMMAR __________________ A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary __________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy __________________ by Richard Charles McDonald December 2014 APPROVAL SHEET GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS OF VARIOUS BIBLICAL HEBREW TEXTS ACCORDING TO A TRADITIONAL SEMITIC GRAMMAR Richard Charles McDonald Read and Approved by: __________________________________________ Russell T. Fuller (Chair) __________________________________________ Terry J. Betts __________________________________________ John B. Polhill Date______________________________ I dedicate this dissertation to my wife, Nancy. Without her support, encouragement, and love I could not have completed this arduous task. I also dedicate this dissertation to my parents, Charles and Shelly McDonald, who instilled in me the love of the Lord and the love of His Word. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.............................................................................................vi LIST OF TABLES.............................................................................................................vii
    [Show full text]
  • Wesay Walkthrough Wesay Was Made by the Payap Language Software Group © SIL International 2007 – 2009 Available Under the Open Source MIT License
    WeSay Walkthrough WeSay was made by the Payap Language Software group © SIL International 2007 ± 2009 Available under the open source MIT license. This documentation written by Nolan Adams © SIL International 2009. WeSay Walkthrough Table of Contents About This Document.....................................................................................................1 Who Should Read This........................................................................................1 What You Will Learn..........................................................................................1 Document Conventions.......................................................................................1 About WeSay..................................................................................................................2 Who WeSay is For....................................................................................................2 Task-Based Approach to Dictionary Making............................................................2 Gloss vs. Definition...................................................................................................4 Introduction.....................................................................................................................5 HowTo Install WeSay on Windows................................................................................6 Downloading WeSay.................................................................................................6 Running the Installer.................................................................................................6
    [Show full text]
  • Proposal for Ethiopic Script Root Zone LGR
    Proposal for Ethiopic Script Root Zone LGR LGR Version 2 Date: 2017-05-17 Document version:5.2 Authors: Ethiopic Script Generation Panel Contents 1 General Information/ Overview/ Abstract ........................................................................................ 3 2 Script for which the LGR is proposed ................................................................................................ 3 3 Background on Script and Principal Languages Using It .................................................................... 4 3.1 Local Languages Using the Script .............................................................................................. 4 3.2 Geographic Territories of the Language or the Language Map of Ethiopia ................................ 7 4 Overall Development Process and Methodology .............................................................................. 8 4.1 Sources Consulted to Determine the Repertoire....................................................................... 8 4.2 Team Composition and Diversity .............................................................................................. 9 4.3 Analysis of Code Point Repertoire .......................................................................................... 10 4.4 Analysis of Code Point Variants .............................................................................................. 11 5 Repertoire ....................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Yonas and Yavanas in Indian Literature Yonas and Yavanas in Indian Literature
    YONAS AND YAVANAS IN INDIAN LITERATURE YONAS AND YAVANAS IN INDIAN LITERATURE KLAUS KARTTUNEN Studia Orientalia 116 YONAS AND YAVANAS IN INDIAN LITERATURE KLAUS KARTTUNEN Helsinki 2015 Yonas and Yavanas in Indian Literature Klaus Karttunen Studia Orientalia, vol. 116 Copyright © 2015 by the Finnish Oriental Society Editor Lotta Aunio Co-Editor Sari Nieminen Advisory Editorial Board Axel Fleisch (African Studies) Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila (Arabic and Islamic Studies) Tapani Harviainen (Semitic Studies) Arvi Hurskainen (African Studies) Juha Janhunen (Altaic and East Asian Studies) Hannu Juusola (Middle Eastern and Semitic Studies) Klaus Karttunen (South Asian Studies) Kaj Öhrnberg (Arabic and Islamic Studies) Heikki Palva (Arabic Linguistics) Asko Parpola (South Asian Studies) Simo Parpola (Assyriology) Rein Raud (Japanese Studies) Saana Svärd (Assyriology) Jaana Toivari-Viitala (Egyptology) Typesetting Lotta Aunio ISSN 0039-3282 ISBN 978-951-9380-88-9 Juvenes Print – Suomen Yliopistopaino Oy Tampere 2015 CONTENTS PREFACE .......................................................................................................... XV PART I: REFERENCES IN TEXTS A. EPIC AND CLASSICAL SANSKRIT ..................................................................... 3 1. Epics ....................................................................................................................3 Mahābhārata .........................................................................................................3 Rāmāyaṇa ............................................................................................................25
    [Show full text]
  • Fine Arts BA (Fine Arts)
    THE UNIVERSITY OF THE FREE STATE RULE BOOK 2013 FACULTY OF THE HUMANITIES ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMMES Dean: Prof. L.J.S. Botes 106 Flippie Groenewoud Building Telephone: 051 4012240 Fax: 051 4445803 OFFICIAL ADDRESS FOR ENQUIRIES: Correspondence with regard to academic matters should be addressed to: The Faculty Manager University of the Free State Faculty of the Humanities P.O. Box 339 BLOEMFONTEIN 9300 Telephone: 051 4012369 Fax: 051 4445803 E-mail: [email protected] hhhhhhhh hhhhhhhh hhhhhhhh 1 Faculty of the Humanities Undergraduate Rule book - 2013 RULE BOOK FACULTIES Humanities Law Agriculture and Natural Sciences Economic and Management Sciences Education Health Sciences Theology N.B.: Copies of the individual sections of the Rule book (as above), including the General Calendar, are available on request from the Registrar: Academic Student Services. 2 Faculty of the Humanities Undergraduate Rule book - 2013 CONTENTS Academic Staff ..................................................................................................... 5 Contact Details .................................................................................................... 8 General Information ............................................................................................. 9 General University Regulations ........................................................................... 9 Faculty Regulations ............................................................................................. 9 General requirements
    [Show full text]
  • Unsupervised Multilingual Learning Benjamin Snyder
    Unsupervised Multilingual Learning by Benjamin Snyder Submitted to the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY September 2010 © Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2010. All rights reserved. Author............................................................. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science September 3, 2010 Certified by . Regina Barzilay Associate Professor Thesis Supervisor Accepted by. Terry P. Orlando Chairman, Department Committee on Graduate Students 2 Unsupervised Multilingual Learning by Benjamin Snyder Submitted to the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science on September 3, 2010, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Abstract For centuries, scholars have explored the deep links among human languages. In this thesis, we present a class of probabilistic models that exploit these links as a form of naturally occurring supervision. These models allow us to substantially improve performance for core text processing tasks, such as morphological segmentation, part-of-speech tagging, and syntactic parsing. Besides these traditional NLP tasks, we also present a multilingual model for lost language decipherment. We test this model on the ancient Ugaritic language. Our results show that we can automatically uncover much of the historical relationship between Ugaritic and Biblical Hebrew, a known related language. Thesis Supervisor: Regina Barzilay Title: Associate Professor 3 Acknowledgments This thesis would not be possible without my collaborators: Tahira Naseem, Ja- cob Eisenstein, Kevin Knight, and most importantly, my advisor Regina Barzilay. Regina has been a brilliant and tireless advisor throughout my five years at MIT. She has set consistently high standards and has always provided the support and guidance needed to meet those standards.
    [Show full text]
  • (Cf. 1.Common Semitic) a Bibliography of Ugaritic
    6A. STANDARD HEBREW 6A.1. BIBLIOGRAPHY (cf. 1. Common Semitic ) A Bibliography of Ugaritic Grammar and Biblical Hebrew in the Twentieth Century , by M. Smith [http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/DEPT/RA/bibs/BH-Ugaritic.html: pdf, doc, rtf]. “A classified discourse analysis bibliography”, by K.E. Lowery, in DABL , pp. 213-253. An Index of English Periodical Literature on the Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies , 2 vols. (American Theological Library Association. Bibliography Series 21), by W.G. Hupper, Philadelphia 1987-1999. ´ “Bibliografia historii i kultury Zydów w Polsce za rok 1994”, by St. G ąsiorowski, Studia Judaica Crocoviensia: Series Bibliographica 2 (10), Krakow 2002 [Bibliography on the history and culture od the Jews in Poland for the year 1994]. “Bibliographie, Altes Testament/Qumran”, AfO 14, 1941-1944 // 29-30, 1983-1984 (Palestina und Syrien ; Altes Testament un nachbiblische Schriftum ; Die handschriftenfunde am Toten Meer/Qumran). Bibliographie biblique/Biblical Bibliography/Biblische Bibliographie/Bibliografla biblica/Bibliografía bíblica. III : 1930-1983 , by P.-E. Langevin, Québec 1985 [‘Philologie’, 335-464]. “Bibliographische Dokurnentation: lexikalisches und grammatisches Material”, bearb. von T. Ijoherty et al. , ZAH l, 1988, 122-137, 210-234. “Bibliographische Dokumentation: lexikalisches und grammatisches Material”, bearb. von W. Breder et al. , ZAH 2, 1989, 93-119; 2, 1989, 213-243, 3, 1990, 98-125; 3, 1990, 221-231. “Bibliographische Dokumentation: lexikalisches und grammatisches Material”, bearb. von B. Brauer et al. ., ZAH 4, 1991, 95-114,194-209; 5, 1992, 91-112, 226-236; 6, 1993, 128-148; 6, 1993, 243-256 ; 6, 1993, 128-148; 6, 1993, 243-256 ; 7, 1994, 88-100; 7, 1994, 245-257; “Bibliographische Dokumientation: lexikalisches und grammatisches Material”, in Verbindung mit B.
    [Show full text]
  • Arts Undergraduate
    Arts – Undergraduate University College Dublin National University of Ireland, Dublin Arts, Philosophy, Celtic Studies (Undergraduate Day Courses) Session 2002/2003 1 University College Dublin Information For Exchange Students Re. Units And Credits Throughout this booklet, undergraduate Arts courses, except in first year, are given or deemed to have a unit value. A one-unit course consists of one lecture/tutorial per week for a twelve-week period or represents an equivalent proportion of the year’s work. Courses of two or three units are pro rata. Normally a student would take courses to the value of twenty-four units in a full year. In addition, University College Dublin has adopted a system of credits, awarded for work successfully completed. In line with the European Course Credit Transfer System (ECTS), a full year’s work successfully completed will be allotted 60 credits. Exchange students and others involved in ECTS transfer of courses should note that to determine the number of credits which will be allotted to a successfully completed day Arts course, the Arts Faculty unit value should be multiplied by 2.5. Thus: A one-unit course, successfully completed, will be awarded 2.5 credits; a two-unit course, successfully completed, will be awarded 5 credits; a three-unit course, successfully completed, will be awarded 7.5 credits; and twenty-four units, successfully completed, will be awarded 60 credits. N.B. Enquiries on the award of credits should be addressed to the Registrar, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4. 2 Arts – Undergraduate Contents Information For Exchange Students Re. Units And Credits.............................
    [Show full text]
  • 2018-2019 | Academic Catalog
    2018-2019 | Academic Catalog We Train Men Because Lives Depend On It Dear Minister of the Gospel, You will certainly agree with me that there is nothing more thrilling and, at the same time, humbling than to be called by the God of the universe to be one of His special representatives to His church and to a needy and lost generation. If our wonderful Lord has laid His hand upon you for such an exciting ministry, it is critical that you receive the very best training that is available. In fact, choosing a seminary is one of the most crucial ministry decisions you will ever make. This is true because your life, and later the lives of those to whom you minister, will reflect the character and quality of your study and experience in seminary. At The Master’s Seminary we offer theological education that is centered in the inerrant Word of God, sustained by scholarly study and research, nurtured in discipling relationships and ministry experiences, characterized by personal growth, and directed toward effectiveness in evangelism and edification. Here you will find seminary training that majors on personal holiness, exegetical study, and biblical theology and does so right in the context of a vital local church. If God is calling you to a special ministry, if you aspire to effectiveness in a ministry of the Word, if you are willing to submit yourself to the discipline of diligent study and to discipleship by godly men. then we invite you to prayerfully consider the exciting potential for study with us at The Master’s Seminary.
    [Show full text]
  • Transmission and Mortal Anxiety in the Tale of Aqhat,” in Like ʾilu Are You Wise: Studies in Northwest Semitic Languages and Literature in Honor of Dennis G
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Humanities Commons Vayntrub Page 1 of 35 “Transmission and Mortal Anxiety in the Tale of Aqhat,” in Like ʾIlu Are You Wise: Studies in Northwest Semitic Languages and Literature in Honor of Dennis G. Pardee, Oriental Institute Publications. Forthcoming. Transmission and Mortal Anxiety in the Tale of Aqhat Jacqueline Vayntrub Brandeis University Sons and Mortality1 The father-son relationship, along with its ideals and potential failures, forms a central theme in the Ugaritic tale of Aqhat.2 The narrative, however, does not simply establish or rehearse conventional expectations of sonship. Rather, the story establishes the father-son relationship to be conventional in the space of the narrative in order to replace this convention with an alternative: the blessing and success generated through the father-daughter relationship. Through the events of the story and the discourse of its characters, the narrative presents, delimits, and ultimately reshapes social relationships to conform to this agenda. While the story 1. I am honored to offer this study of the father-daughter alternative to the father-son relationship in the Aqhat story to Dennis Pardee, a paragon of excellence in scholarship and dedication in training future generations. 2. A number of studies have already made this observation, in a variety of ways: Obermann 1946; Eissfeldt 1966; Koch 1967; Westermann and Günther 1976, 151-168 (from a non-literary, history of religions perspective); Ashley 1977, 279-280; Healey 1979; del Olmo Lete 1981, 358-362; Avishur 1986; Parker 1989, 107; Margalit 1989, 267-284; Husser 1996; Greenstein 2000; Kim 2011, 100-101.
    [Show full text]
  • An Exercise in Abkhaz Comparative Dialectology: in the Steps of N. Ja
    An Exercise in Abkhaz Comparative Dialectology: in the Steps of N. Ja. Marr George Hewitt and Zaira Khiba One of the multitude of languages in which the legendary (albeit, in terms of theoretical linguistics, eccentric) Scottish-Georgian philologist Nikolaj Jakovlevich Marr [Nik’o Iak’obis-dze Mari] (1864-1934) took an interest was the North-West Caucasian language Abkhaz, spoken to the (north-) west of both his birthplace (Kutaisi in Imereti(a)) and his maternal region of Guria; the province of Mingrelia (home to Georgian's sister-language, Mingrelian, the second most widely attested South Caucasian tongue) historically split Abkhazia from Georgian-speaking areas. Abkhaz had first been studied in depth by the Russian soldier- linguist Baron P. K. Uslar, who is widely credited with having laid the foundations of North Caucasian linguistics. He produced monograph- descriptions of some seven North Caucasian languages, and Abkhaz was the first, the printed version of the work appearing in 1887. Uslar devised a Cyrillic-based script but did not manage to distinguish all the 67 consonantal phonemes of the northern, Bzyp dialect, on which he worked. Successive adaptations were introduced by I. Bartolomej, K’. Mach’avariani, the native Abkhazian D. Gulia, and finally in 1909 by another Abkhazian A. Ch’och’ua, whose version remained in use for some two decades. Pre-Soviet publications were few and included a translation of the Gospels (1912) and Ch’och’ua's own primer (1920). The early Soviets granted Abkhaz the status of a literary language, which guaranteed not only continuing and more widescale publication but also the possibility of teaching of and in the language.
    [Show full text]
  • DIES DIEM DOCET: the DECIPHERMENT of UGARITIC Peggy L. Day in the Field of Ugaritic Studies, Three Scholars Are Generally Credit
    DIES DIEM DOCET: THE DECIPHERMENT OF UGARITIC Peggy L. Day In the field of Ugaritic studies, three scholars are generally credited with playing major roles in the decipherment of Ugaritic: Hans Bauer, Paul Dhorme and Charles Virolleaud. To date, only one scholar, Alan D. Corre\ has produced a detailed analysis of the precise roles that each of these scholars played1. While Corre's reconstruction of the decipherment process is, in general, commendably sound, it nevertheless does not take all of the relevant data into account, leaves certain facts unexplained (or underexplained) and is methodologically weak in its assigning dates to two important elements of the primary record that involve instances where lecture presentations preceded the published versions of the papers2. Thus there is room for improvement on Corre's work. The present article will proceed by laying out in chronological order and considerable detail the pertinent facts, attending more fully to data such as paper presentation dates, article completion dates, and intellectual context. It will also glean relevant data from articles, records and private communications heretofore overlooked as sources for reconstructing the decipherment process. It will then bring all of this information to bear on assessing the above scholars' respective roles, especially the problematic role of Charles Virolleaud. In March of 1928 a local farmworker plowing near Minet el-Beida dislodged a stone slab that covered a passageway leading to a vaulted tomb. When the Assyriologist Charles Virolleaud, then Director of the French Service des Antiquites* in Beirut, was informed A.D. Corre, "Anatomy of a Decipherment", Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters 55, 1966, 11-20.
    [Show full text]