500 ANNUAL KEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



thing of the pie-Hebrew (South Canaanito) of south Palestme ; it was 

 different from the Phoenician of the same time. Later, the Hebrew 

 l)eoples spread over Palestine and adopted South Canaanite; they 

 liad at least two general dialects, a southern Hebrew (the official 

 dialect of Jerusalem) and a northern Hebrew. Across the Jordan we 

 know of one dialect, Moabite, closely related to Hebrew. Mean- 

 while Phoenician, on the coast north of Palestine, was also Canaanite, 

 but different in several respects; it, too, had several dialects. Of the 

 languages of the far northern coast of Syria we had no information 

 till the Ras Shanira excavations. 



During the beginning of the first millennium B. C. there appear 

 from the north and east a now group of dialects, also Northwest 

 Semitic, but different from the Canaanite. These are the Aramaic, 

 which slowly replaced the Canaanite dialects. 



In this mass of languages, what are the affinities of Ugaritic? The 

 affinities of Ugaritic with Phoenician and Hebrew are many. In 

 Ugaritic and Phoenician, Semitic s coalesced with §; this took place 

 in Aramaic, too, but not in vSouth Canaanite. In Ugaritic and 

 Phoenician and northern Hebrew the diphthongs ay and aw were 

 simplified to ^, 6. In Ugaritic and all Canaanite dialects n had been 

 regularly assimilated to following consonants, and in Ugaritic and 

 Biblical (southern) Hebrew n does not assimilate when it is the tliird 

 radical of a verb. Ugaritic and Phoenician both replaced the verbal 

 root ntn "to give" with the secondarily formed variant ytn. The 

 vocabular}'^ is nuich the same in all, as a comparison between Ugaritic 

 and Hebrew will readily show. Afany personal names are the same: 

 the rare name 'bdssm, which occurs in Has Shamra, appears again in 

 a late Phoenician inscription. AMiole phrases are the same: compare 

 Ugaritic lyhpk ksa mlkk lytbr hi mtpik "Indeed he will overturn the 

 throne of your reign; he will break the scepter of your rule" with the 

 almost identical phrase from the Phoenician Ahiram inscription, some 

 centuries later, thtsi) h{r mSpth tldpk ks' mlkh.* 



With the Hebrew Bible there are scores of similarities in special 

 uses of words, in phrases, in turns of expression. It may suffice to 

 note but one or two: the use of bn ydm (literally "between the hands") 

 in the sense of "back", parallel to ktp "shoulder," thus exi)laining 

 the misunderstood ben yddeka "on j^our back" of Zechariah 13: 6; 

 the parallel 'dldm "eternity" with dor waddr (Ps. 145: 13, etc.) fre- 

 quent in Ugarit; the Ugaritic Uim bilhni Ihm stym bkrpnm yn "eat 

 bread from the tables; drink wine from the goblets" mth Biblical 

 phrases using the same words: e. g.. Proverbs 9: 5. 



In determining the place of Ugaritic among Semitic languages, a few 

 general criteria will serve to narrow the field. Not only does the 

 general body of facts about Ugaritic place it in the Northwest Semitic 



* Harris, Z. S., A grammar of the Phoenician language, p. 65. 



