hurrian as a living language in ugaritic society - j.p. vita

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Hurrian as a living language in Ugaritic society1

Juan-Pablo Vita - CSIC – IEIOP, Zaragoza

1. HURRIAN AND HURRIANS IN UGARIT

1.1. In 1939, during the eleventh excavation campaign, the first text in Hurrian was found in Ras Shamra2. Thus, the archives of Ugarit became part of Hurrian studies in the decade of the 40’s in the last century, at a time when the foundations of Hurritology had already been laid.

1.2. Subsequently, excavations in various locations of the tell of Ras Shamra3 have brought to light around 50 texts and syllabic fragments written in Hurrian. They belong to four different genres: letters4, wisdom texts5, music6 and lexical texts7. B. André-Salvini and M. Salvini (2000) have offered a global assessment of the significance of the lexicographic texts found in Ugarit in the study of the Hurrian language8.

1. The first version of this work was presented with the title “L’élément hourrite dans la culture et la langue ougaritiques” as

the second of the four lectures which, under the global title of “Langues, administration et religion à Ougarit”, we delivered in the “Section des sciences religieuses” of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes of Paris in March 2007. We would like to thank Prof. Edwige Rouillard-Bonraisin (EPHE) for her kind invitation to give the aforementioned lectures as well as all those attending them for their enriching and constructive comments throughout the cycle.

2. It is the letter in syllabic script RS 11.853; cf. later sub §3.6. 3. Royal Palace (hall, courtyard I, E. Arch., SW. Arch.), Ville Sud, Butte NW Tell, House of Rap’ānu and N of the House of

Rap’ānu. 4. RS 11.853 (RP hall), RS 23.031 (Ville Sud). Bibliography: Laroche 1955, 327-329; Bush 1964: 25-26; Bordreuil – Pardee

1989, 297, fig. 38 (photograph of RS 23.031); van Soldt 1991: 364; Salvini 1995, 96; Dietrich – Mayer 1999, 61. RS 23.031 is unpublished (Bordreuil – Pardee 1989, 293).

5. RS 15.010 (RP, E. Arch.). Bibliography: Nougayrol – Laroche 1955, 311-324; Bush 1964: 5, 22-23; Cunchillos 1990, 87; Ugaritica 4 p. 136 fig. 119 (photograph).

6. RS 14.015 (RP hall), 14.018 (RP courtyard I), 15.030+ (RP E. Arch.), 18.282 (RP SW Arch.), 19.084 (RP SW Arch.), 19.142-151 (all RP SW Arch.), 19.153-155 (all RP SW Arch.), 19.164 A-Z (all RP SW Arch.). Dietrich – Mayer 1999 add: RS 9.253, 9.483A, published by Laroche 1955 and found in Butte NW Tell. Bibliography: Laroche 1955, 330-335; 1968a, 462-496; Salvini 1995, 94-96; Watson 2004, 275 sub H. 6.7, a bibliography to which we should add: Güterbock 1970; Draffkorn-Kilmer 1974; Thiel 1977; Cunchillos 1990, 87.

7. All of them found in the House of Rap’ānu except: RS 21.062, N of the House of Rap’ānu; 23.493A, Ville Sud; RS 94-2939, House of Urtenu: polyglot vocabularies of the kind “Sª Vocabulary” with a column in Hurrian: RS 21.062, 20.149, 20.426G+, 23.493A, 20.426D, 20.135+21.063C, 20.123+, 20.426B, 20.189A+B, RS 94-2939. All of them have four columns (Sumerian, Akkadian, Hurrian, Ugaritic), except for RS 21.062 and RS 94-2939 (Sumerian, Akkadian, Hurrian) and the Sumero-Hurrian bilingual vocabulary published by Thureau-Dangin (1931; defined as “proto Ḫar.ra : ḫubullu”, is an economic-juridical text and poses significant difficulties in the understanding of the Hurrian part). Bibliography: Thureau-Dangin 1931; Bush 1964: 5-7, 24-25; Nougayrol 1968, 232-249, 448-462; Laroche 1979; Huehnergard 1987; Cunchillos 1990, 19-21; van Soldt 1991, 747-748; Salvini 1995, 93-94; André-Salvini - Salvini 2000. RS 94-2939: André-Salvini - Salvini, 1998, 1999a, 1999b, 2000.

8. The plurilingual vocabularies of Ras Shamra have contributed to establishing the meaning of a great deal of Hurrian words. B. André-Salvini and M. Salvini (2000) have produced an Italian-Hurrian lexicon based on the synoptic list by Huehnergard (1987) and on the text RS 94-2939. They have subsequently re-ordered that lexicon by semantic areas resulting in

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1.3. Besides the syllabic texts, Ras Shamra has also yielded Hurrian texts written in the local alphabetic-type script system (Cunchillos 1990, 89-91). The corpus is made up of 16 texts of various genres9, found in the “Maison du Grand Prêtre” and the “Cella aux Tablettes (Sud Acropole)”, plus fifteen fragments which are difficult to classify10. Within this group two subgroups can be differentiated:

1.3.1. Alphabetic texts in Hurrian: a total of 11 texts found in two places: the “Maison du Grand Prêtre” and the “Cella aux Tablettes (Sud Acropole)”. They are texts regarding the religious world: a hymn11, five incantations12, two sacrificial lists13, one ritual14 and one offering15.

1.3.2. Mixed alphabetic texts (Ugaritic and Hurrian): five texts in total, all of them found in the “Cella aux Tablettes”: one sacrificial list16, one ritual17, one oracle18 and two offerings19.

1.4. In his grammar on the Hurrian language, Speiser (1941: 9) mentioned the essential linguistic unity of all the Hurrian linguistic material that was available in his time. In his opinion, the clear and obvious linguistic differences, as well as other differences that could be noted between texts from such diverse periods and locations, ought to be considered as dialectal peculiarities. In a much later work, Chacikjan (1985) put forward a suggestion to identify these possible dialects, pointing out six likely dialectal groups (cf. also Diakonoff 1981; Girbal – Wegner 1987: 147-148; Wegner 2007: 3320). The third group could be made up of the language of the Sumero-Hurrian bilingual vocabulary from Ugarit (§1.2), the fourth group, of the rest of the Hurrian texts from Ugarit. This proposal must be assessed with caution and, in any case, as a working hypothesis (Giorgieri 2000: 179 n. 33; Wegner 2007: 33)21. On the other the following groups, which give an idea of the rich lexicon contained in these documents: verbs, abstract nouns, specific things, human beings (sex, category depending on age, family relations, functions and trades), parts of the body, animals, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions and proper names. The contribution of the polyglot vocabularies found in Ras Shamra to the knowledge of Hurrian is, therefore, essential.

9. To which a series of fragments which are difficult to understand should be added: RS 1.[066] = 1.32, RS 1.[067] = 1.33, RS 1.[076] = 1.34, RS 1.[069] = 1.35, RS 1.[070] = 1.36, RS 1.[071] = 1.37, RS 1.027 = 1.51, RS 1.028 + 035 = 1.52, RS 1.[049A] = 1.59, RS 1.[074] = 7.40, RS 1.[031] = 7.43, RS 3.372 = 1.64, RS 5.182 = 1.66, RS 5.200 = 1.68, RS 1-11.[046] = 1.30, RS 24.644 = 1.149 (incomprehensible). See also Herdner 1963: 255-271.

10. The alphabetic script system used for the Hurrian language from Ugarit corresponds very closely to that used in Ugaritic texts (Speiser 1941: 7, 15 y 19; Bush 1964: 4, 36-39, 44-45, 57-58, 65-67, 73-74; Laroche 1968a; 497-500, 527-533). This has been particularly helpful in establishing Hurrian phonetics, since this alphabet can differentiate several phonemes which are ambiguously presented by the syllabic material, for example: ḫ and ḥ = syl. ḫ; ṯ and š = syl. š. In this sense, the onomastic material from Ugarit is particularly interesting (Gröndahl 1967: 203-213; Hess 1999; van Soldt 2003). The Hurrian texts also use the three alif (‘a, ‘i, ‘u) as vocalic indicators. Given that the glottal closure marked by the /’/ is not attested in Hurrian, the alif must represent only vowels. They have a regular use only in an initial position.

11. RS 1.004 (Maison Grand Prêtre) = CAT 1.42. Bibliography: del Olmo 1999 : 86. 12. RS 1.007 (Maison Grand Prêtre) = CAT 1.44 (Kumarbi), RS 1.034 + 045 (Maison Grand Prêtre) = CAT 1.54 (Šawuška),

RS 24.269 + 297 (Cella aux Tablettes) = CAT 1.120, RS 24.278 (Cella aux Tablettes) = CAT 1.128 (Ilu), RS 24.285 (Cella aux Tablettes) = CAT 1.131 (Ušḫara). Bibliography: Dietrich – Mayer 1994; 1995: 22-31.

13. RS 2.[006] (Maison Grand Prêtre) = CAT 1.60, RS 1-11.[048] (unknown origin) = CAT 1.26. Bibliography: Dietrich – Mayer 1995; 1997.

14. RS 24.274 (Cella aux Tablettes) = CAT 1.125. Bibliography: Dietrich – Mayer 1996; 1997 ; 1998. 15. RS 24.295 (Cella aux Tablettes) = CAT 1.135. Dietrich – Mayer 1997; 1998. 16. RS 24.254 = CAT 1.110. Bibliography: Dietrich – Mayer 1995: 12-16; 1997; 1998; del Olmo 1999: 84-85; Pardee 1996;

2000: 615-617; Rahmouni 2005. 17. RS 24.291 = CAT 1.132 (Pidray). Bibliography: Dietrich – Mayer 1996; 1997; Pardee 1996; 2000: 738-744; del Olmo

1999: 208-210. 18. RS 24.255 = CAT 1.111. Bibliography: Dietrich – Mayer 1995: 17-22; Pardee 1996; 2000: 618-629; del Olmo 1999: 199-

203; Rahmouni 2005. 19. RS 24.261 = CAT 1.116, RS 24.643 = CAT 1.148 (A≈tarte). Bibliography: Dietrich – Mayer 1997; 1998; Pardee 1996;

2000: 652-658; del Olmo 1999: 84-85; Lam 2006. 20. Wegner (2007: 33) adds a seventh possibility to the list: “ein oder mehre ‘myttelsyrische’ Dialekte (?) (Qaṭna, Nija)”. 21. Currently, there prevails a general idea of a very homogeneous language where two main dialects (perhaps phases) of the

language can be noted (Giorgieri 2000: 179; Wilhelm 2004: 97; Hazenbos 2005: 136-137): the so-called “ancient Hurrian” and

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hand, apart from Speiser (1941) and Bush (1964), the Hurrian language used in the alphabetic texts from Ugarit has been studied specifically by Laroche (1968a: 527-540) and, more recently, by Dietrich and Mayer (1994: 106-109; 1995: 32-38; 1999: 62-69)22.

1.5. The Hurrian texts found in Ras Shamra, both in syllabic and in alphabetic script, were and continue to be of great importance and help in the study of Hurrian. However, in the opposite direction, the Hurrian language can also be of assistance in the understanding of Ugaritic texts. A clear example is given by the Ugaritic-Hurrian bilingual ritual texts (§1.3.2). But Hurrian terms and morphological elements are also present in the lexicon of other genres from the Ugaritic corpus. In a series of studies on non-Semitic words in the Ugaritic lexicon, Watson (1995; 1996; 1998; 1999; 2002; 2007: 124-135) reviews a total 97 words (cf. sp. Watson 2007: 124-135) in alphabetic script which are, or may be, of Hurrian origin. That list is in itself revealing of the importance of Hurrian in Ugaritic texts. In this sense, it is interesting to recall the following opinion of von Soden (1988: 310; already cited by Watson 1995: 533; 2007: 124): “Wenn für ein ugaritisches Wort eine semitische Etymologie nicht zu finden ist, wird man mit Vorrang an eine Herleitung aus dem Hurritischen denken wegen der vielen hurritischen Wörter in den ugaritischen Texten”.

1.6. All of the above allows us to assert that Hurrian is the second ethnic, linguistic and cultural component basic to the kingdom of Ugarit (Vita 1999: 456). The Hurrian texts found in Ras Shamra particularly show the importance of Hurrian religion and mythology in the cult of Ugarit. The Ugaritc pantheon includes, indeed, some deities which in all probability are Hurrian, such as Išḫara or Pidrayu, they also have their practical application in texts such as the Ugaritic ritual RS 24.260 (1.115) dedicated to Išḫara (ušḫr). The Hurrian pantheon itself is known in Ugarit thanks to canonical and ritual lists and, despite great difficulties in the proper understanding and interpretation of the texts, it is possible to attempt their reconstruction with the presence of deities such as Teššub, Kumarb/wi or Šawuška (Laroche 1968a: 518-527; 1968b; Mayer 1996; Dietrich – Mayer 1997; del Olmo 1999: 82-86).

2. HURRIAN AS A LIVING LANGUAGE IN UGARITIC SOCIETY?

2.1. Based on the above, we would now like to look into the question of the use of Hurrian as a spoken language in Ugarit. It is intended to identify the elements which might indicate whether Hurrian ceased to be a commonly spoken language in Ugaritic society some decades before the destruction of the kingdom, remaining limited only to certain moments of palatine cult or, on the contrary, that this language continued to be spoken in Ugaritic society until the end of the kingdom.

2.2. As a starting point for a new debate on the issue, we can take the work of Sanmartín (1999-2000), to-date the most comprehensive and meditated analysis of the Hurrian element in Ugaritic society and culture. In his exposition, the author takes into account both the textual material and the archaeological data provided by the excavations in Ras Shamra. He begins by making the following verifications:

- The Hurrian written examples come from only two libraries: the library of the “Prêtre hourrite” and the library of the “Grand Prêtre”.

the Hurrian in the letter of Mittani (EA 24, §1.2), which are different mainly in the verbal system and in the syntax and are often, in fact, contemporary.

22. The mainly consonantal script of the Hurrian alphabetic texts makes the interpretation of this linguistic material particularly difficult. The existence of these texts may also lead to questions such as those raised by Malbran-Labat (1999: 70): “Était-ce alors l’oeuvre d’un sémite – ou d’un sémitisant? – qui, grâce à une parfaite connaissance de ces hymnes, pouvait choisir de les transcrire de manière artificielle, inadaptée?”.

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- The lists of gods in the alphabetic cuneiform system are written both in Ugaritic and in Hurrian. Both linguistic groups share, therefore, the cuneiform alphabet and the two textual series are the product of an identical scribal culture.

- Nevertheless, both series of lists differ radically both with regard to the naming of the listed deities and to their relative sequencing. The two series are a reflection of independent traditions and of two distinctive social sectors: the Hurrian and the Ugaritic.

On these grounds, and after considering (Sanmartín 1999-2000: 115) the question of who the “Hurrians” were in Ugarit (“Ugaritics”?, if so, “in what sense and to what extent? Were they a homogenous group, a kind of ‘parish’?”), he reviews the textual and archaeological evidence to reach (Sanmartín 1999-2000: 120) a series of conclusions which can be summed up as follows:

- There are indications of the use of Hurrian as a living language in the religious sphere (rituals) up until the end of the historical period of Ugarit.

- There are signs that the reflection in writing of Hurrian texts (liturgical /literary) was gradually decreasing in the Babylonic signary as Hittite pressure increased, although it never completely ceased as a school exercise.

- There are indications that the Hurrian ritual made an increasingly wider use of the alphabetic signary until the end of Ugarit.

- There are no indications that, towards the end of the historical period of Ugarit, Hurrian was a truly living language outside the religious sphere. In the last part of his work he delves into this last question:

¿Por qué están redactadas estas listas sacrificiales en hurrita, y por qué se recitaban estas plegarias de conjuro en hurrita? ¿Se debe todo ello a la presencia en Ugarit de una especie de ‘comunidad parroquia’ hurrita que exige la celebración de cultos hurritas? ¿Había una competencia entre las lenguas, las liturgias y las series de dioses ugaríticas y hurritas? ¿Son los textos hurritas fruto de esta competencia entre dos ritos, dos lenguas, dos culturas, dos etnias? ... El uso ritual del hurrita en determinadas circunstancias puede deberse, más que a la necesidad de satisfacer las exigencias o necesidades ‘pastorales’ (o religiosas) de una comunidad lingüística viva y bien diferenciada, a atavismos culturales y a condicionamientos provenientes del modelo cultural y político vigente en Ugarit desde 2iqmadu II, es decir, desde el paso a la órbita cultural hitita (Sanmartín 1999-2000: 121-123). Sanmartín’s answer regarding the use of Hurrian in Ugarit society during the last century and a half

of the kingdom is, therefore, a negative one. Hurrian in Ugarit gradually ceased to be a living language after the integration of the kingdom within the Hittite world and in the end it only survived in certain ritual practices.

2.3. Other authors point in the same direction. After their analysis of Hurrian in the alphabetic texts (§1.4) and of the pantheon in cultic texts, Dietrich and Mayer (1999: 74-75) conclude that Hurrian was no longer a living language in the period to which the preserved archives belong. In the cultic texts, “Hurrian wording has still been conscientiously transmitted even when Hurrian was no longer a commonly understood language in Ugarit”. This circumstance would account for the existence of the mixed Ugaritic-Hurrian ritual texts: at the time when these texts were written, Hurrian would already be an unintelligible language and for the proper performance of those rituals of Hurrian tradition, it may have been necessary to include notes in Ugaritic in order to ensure the correct understanding of the rites. Consequently, non-Hurrian deities such as ’Ilu became also part of these rituals. Hurrian may have no longer been a living cult but may have only been observed within certain circles. The historical explanation for this evolution could come, according to these authors, from the existence of a Semitic royal household that may have


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seized power in Ugarit towards the middle of the 2nd millennium BC and may have progressively eliminated the Hurrian cult in the kingdom (see, regarding this, also Dietrich – Loretz 1988: 310-311; Dietrich 1997, 2004).

2.4. According to van Soldt (1991: 340 n. 181) “Whether Hurrian was widely used as a spoken language remains a mystery”, although in the same work he claims that “Hurrian was a language understood (and probably spoken) at Ugarit” (van Soldt 1991: 229). In a more recent work, the same author (van Soldt 2003) has analyzed the presence of Hurrian anthroponyms in Ugarit onomastics in an attempt to provide an answer to social and cultural related questions such as, for example, the criterion that may have been followed by parents when choosing their children’s names. Amongst the preliminary considerations in his study, the author points out:

Almost all Hurrian texts, both in syllabic and in alphabetic script, were used in the local cult and in the school curriculum. They were not documents of everyday life, such as letters and juridical texts. Only two letters in Hurrian were found in Ugarit ... Thus, from the letters and cultic texts it is clear that Hurrian was understood at Ugarit. However, the lack of any document of everyday life suggests that Hurrian was not spoken by a large section of society and did not play any role in the city administration (van Soldt 2003: 682). 2.5. F. Malbran-Labat has also dealt with the matter in two recent works. In his study on the

languages and scripts of Ugarit he points out, like the abovementioned authors, that: Le hourrite est bien attesté dans les textes d’Ougarit, mais de manière très spécialisée: dans les listes lexicales et dans les textes religieux. C’est-à-dire à un niveau culturel et social très défini (Malbran-Labat 1999: 69). Next, he considers the question we are dealing with here: Hors des milieux religieux et scribaux, quel était l’emploi du hourrite?”, and he leaves the question open: “Cela est difficile à définir d’autant qu’il n’est pas possible de déterminer la proportion que répresentait la population hourrite dans le royaume d’Ougarit. L’importance des hourritophones ne peut donc être appréciée ... on peut se demander si les tablettes en hourrite retrouvées à Ougarit, qui datent, semble-t-il, de la fin du XIIIe siècle, représentent une survivance et la simple copie de rituels ou si elles témoignent de cultes en vigueur pour lequel le hourrite n’était plus qu’une tradition moribonde (Malbran-Labat 1999: 71). In a more recent work he resumes the question of Hurrian religious texts: il est cependant difficile de déterminer si ces textes impliquent la présence de prêtres hourrites, ou hourritophones, ou s’ils ont été intégrés dans leur langue d’origine et récités ainsi par les officiants en tant que partie intégrante de la liturgie ougaritaine (Malbran-Labat 2002: 176). 2.6. More recently, Roche (2005: 37) has put forward the following considerations regarding the

status of Hurrian as a spoken language in Ugarit: certains chercheurs ont proposé de voir dans la langue hourrite une langue vernaculaire au même titre que l’ougaritique. Cependant, s’il est vrai qu’il faut la considérer comme une langue parlée en Ougarit, elle ne l’est certainement pas au même niveau que l’ougaritique. Du moins, peut-on

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affirmer que les scribes écrivant akkadien laissent entrevoir une langue maternelle ouest-sémitique et non hourrite. En ce sens, d’après les textes, la langue vernaculaire à Ougarit est la langue ouest-sémitique que l’on a appelée ‘ougaritique’. 3. HURRIAN AS A LIVING LANGUAGE IN UGARITIC SOCIETY 3.1. The opinion of the various specialists mentioned above (§2) points in the same direction: from

the moment Hatti starts dominating Syria, the use of the Hurrian language in Ugarit may have gradually been limited to two well defined spheres: scribes and rituals. Outside these areas, and depending on the different opinions, Hurrian was either a dead and unintelligible language, or else we do not have the means to verify the use of this language amongst the rest of the population.

3.2. However, it should be pointed out that some of these authors, despite everything, are open to the possibility that Hurrian may have continued to exist as a living language at least amongst a minority of Ugaritic society or, perhaps, outside the capital of the kingdom. W. H. van Soldt, for example, says that “the lack of any document of everyday life suggests that Hurrian was not spoken by a large section of society” (van Soldt 2003: 682) and that Hurrian could be a language “that was probably only understood by part of the population”; that is, he admits that at least one part of that population, a minority as it may have been, could have had Hurrian as their language or may have understood it. Dietrich and Mayer (1999: 75) also declare that “It is also quite likely that in the land around Ugarit there were villages with an above-average Hurrian component in the population”. According to Roche (2008: 206), “à Ougarit, la langue parlée est l’ougaritique, sporadiquement peut-être le hourrite”. Hallo (1992: 81) may have put forward the clearest opinion so far in favour of Hurrian as a native language in Ugarit:

Ugarit … developed its own proto-alphabetic script which in no more than thirty simplified cuneiform characters was able to render the West Semitic and Hurrian languages that were its native speech. Roche (2008: 206 n. 6) comments on the opinion of Hallo: “On peut objecter à cela que d’après les

sources écrites, hormis pour les textes hourrites, la langue vernaculaire des scribes d’Ougarit était ouest-sémitique et non hourrite”.

Taking all the above considerations into account, we would like to make now the following observations.

3.3. The texts from Ugarit in the Hurrian language that have been made available to us are, indeed, the work of scribes who carried out their tasks within the context of school and cult. For this reason, these texts come from the very specific areas of the palace and the clergy in the capital and do not contain nor do they reflect the actual linguistic and religious reality of the rest of the territory in the kingdom. We believe that in this respect we must make a clear difference between the reality of the capital and the rest of the kingdom, even between scribal centres of the central administration and the rest of the population of the capital itself. The very nature of the preserved documents could disguise the reality of the Hurrian presence in Ugaritic society. In this sense, we should take into account the following remark made by Sanmartín (1999-2000: 115):

El carácter babilonizante (fruto de la política cultural hitita) de la práctica escribal llevada a cabo desde 2iqmaddu II explica que el sector poblacional de origen hurrita ... sin duda bien instalado desde generaciones en las redes sociales y económicas, no haya dejado relictos documentales escritos proporcionales en cantidad ni calidad a la intensidad de su presencia demográfica.


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3.4. Both Sanmartín and van Soldt also express the following considerations regarding the possible use of Hurrian in everyday life in Ugarit:

Sanmartín (1999-200: 115-116): El uso del hurrita escrito se reduce a textos religiosos, rituales y lexicográficos; no se empleaba el hurrita en la documentación administrativa o legal, ni tampoco en la correspondencia oficial o privada ... Sin embargo, ello no implica que durante el período último de Ugarit ... el hurrita fuese una lengua totalmente muerta. van Soldt (2003: 682): The lack of any document of everyday life suggests that Hurrian was not spoken by a large section of society and did not play any role in the city administration. We believe that these assertions must be qualified in some points concerning both the economic

texts and the correspondence. 3.5. It is true that none of the economic texts found in Ras Shamra are written in Hurrian. However,

both the list of Hurrian terms by Watson (§1.5) and some of the examples discussed by Vita and Watson (2002), Tropper and Vita (2003), and Vita (2007) show that Hurrian is conspicuous in these documents. It could be argued that this presence is limited to some lexical loans and to the use of some Hurrian morphemes such as, for example, -ġl- (=o/u=ḫ(e)=li) for the formation of function nouns. But we should take into account the existence of an administrative text such as RS 17.141 (CAT 4.277), found in the East Archive of the Royal Palace. Written in Ugaritic, it contains numerous anthroponyms; some, like those in lines 2-5, seem to belong to a certain professional group, cf. l. 1: bnš kld, where kld is, in all likelihood, a Hurrian term for “bow”23. The most remarkable feature of the text is, however, the large amount of orthographic anomalies contained in it, which produce unique varieties of well known anthtroponyms, for example: cbdyrġ instead of cbdyrḫ, aḥrṯp instead of aḫršp, cbdnt instead of cbdcnt, ypltn instead of yplṭn, etc. The constant shift and confusion of laryngeals, dentals, emphatics, etc. (cf. Bordreuil 2002; Tropper 2000: 141, 1040) can only be explained as a result of the work of a scribe of a non-Semitic language, very probably of the Hurrian language (Gröndahl 1967: 21; Sivan 1997: 27). See in this sense also the Akkadian administrative text RS 17.388 (Nougayrol 1970: 50-51), perhaps the work of another Hurrian scribe. These documents may attest to the existence of Hurrian speakers also amongst the scribes of the administration of the palace. The central administration of the kingdom may not have had the need to use Hurrian for producing internal economic documents, but amongst its officials there may have been some Hurrians who knew the Ugaritic language and (with more or less accuracy) the cuneiform alphabet. The presence of Hurrian scribes, thus, was presumably not limited to the circles of school and cult.

3.6. As regards the correspondence, we believe that we must give more consideration to the two Hurrian letters found so far in Ras Shamra (§1.2). Letter RS 11.853 (cf. also §1.1), very likely from Karkemiš, is one of the two in Hurrian that Ras Shamra has yielded; according to Salvini (1995: 96) “On y nomme les villes d’Ougarit et de Karkemiš. Le texte fait référence à un messager ... et à un envoi d’hommes ..., peut-être des militaires”. The fact that, so far, Ras Shamra has only yielded two letters in

23. bnš kld could mean “archers”; cf. in Nuzi Hur. keltuḫlu, del Olmo – Sanmartín 2003:439.

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Hurrian must not be understood, in our opinion, as an indication of a scarce or almost nonexistant use of Hurrian in Ugaritic society ; on the contrary, we believe that it must be assessed in the sense considered by Salvini (1995: 96: “son existence montre ... que cette langue était activement utilisée même dans les rapports diplomatiques ou militaires”) and by Malbran-Labat (1999: 71: “la découverte au palais de deux lettres en hourrite peut faire soupçonner que cette langue restait d’une pratique sinon courante, du moins rélle dans les échanges quotidiens”). It should be remembered, in this sense, that the Amarna letter EA 24 is the only one in Hurrian preserved amongst the correspondence of Tušratta, King of Mittani, with Egypt, as opposed to the other ten letters in Akkadian and two inventories of presents in the same language24. EA 24 continues to be the only document available to us which comes directly from the chancery of Mittani. These facts, obviously, do not allow us to argue in the sense of a scarce use of Hurrian in Mittani and its depending territories.

The letter RS 23.031, found near the “Maison aux tablettes” (Dietrich – Mayer 1999, 61), deserves special attention. This text has not been published yet25 although it has been partially transcribed by van Soldt (1991: 364 n. 250). Malbran-Labat (1995:37; cf. also Malbran-Labat 1999: 71; Richter 2005b: 171) presented the document as follows:

dans une lettre échangée entre deux personnages au nom hourrite, Entašali et 2a-x-še-a-tal, apparaissent des clous de glose qui n’introduisent pas la ‘traduction’ du terme précédent mais qui indiquent le passage, à l’intérieur d’une phrase, de l’akkadien au hourrite; cela constitue une espèce de sabir akkado-hourrite où les éléments formulaires (lu šulmu, anuma) et les éléments nominaux ou pronominaux (bēli-ia) sont akkadiens tandis que la plupart des verbes sont hourrites (e-ta-a-an, ha-u-ša-uš-šu?, ha-še-e-ta, hi-il-li) ... il semble ... que ce soit ... une langue « mixte» employée pour des relations commerciales; c’est là un élément intéressant pour évaluer le statut et la volonté d’intégration des Hourrites dans un milieu linguistique où prédominaient l’ougaritique et l’akkadien, ainsi que la vitalité qu’y conservait sans doute la langue hourrite. According to van Soldt (1991: 364) “The orthography of the Hurrian words is clearly in line with

the Mittannian syllabary and the text must have been written by a scribe who knew this tradition well”; the letter may not have been written in Ugarit but it would attest to the fact that Hurrian was understood by Ugaritic scribes (or tradesmen?) (van Soldt 1991: 229, 340 n. 181).

3.7. Letter RS 23.031 remained, up until recently, the sole testimony of an unknown mixed

Akkadian-Hurrian language. However, the text has gained a new dimension and context thanks to the recent find in Mišrife/Qaṭna of five letters (datable to between the middle and the beginning of the last quarter of the 14th century BC) which contain a similar language (Richter 2003; 2005a; 2005b)26. Several linguistic elements of the Amarna letters of Qaṭna EA 52 and 53 already suggested that it was a town where Hurrian was the local language of communication, but the new letters reinforce this hypothesis. In total, they present 11 Hurrian glosses which translate their corresponding 11 Akkadian or Sumerian terms, as well as 88 Hurrian grammatical elements. The Hurrian words, which make up 25% of the global vocabulary of these letters, are always (except in one case) preceded by a Glossenkeil. Richter concludes that all the available data indicate that “das Hurritische die Umgangssprache in weiten Teilen

24. Letter EA 24 is translated into French (Wilhelm, in Moran 1987, 139-151), English (Wilhelm, in Moran 1992, 63-71),

Italian (Giorgieri, in Liverani 1999, 374-391) and German (Wilhelm 2006). A series of 26 photographs of the tablet can be seen on the Internet (Marzahn – Vita 2003; also with photographs of EA 18, 20, 21, 23 and 29).

25. Cf. Bordreuil – Pardee 1989: 293. 26. Regarding the linguistic material from Qaṭna presented by T. Richter see also Wegner 2007: 238-244.


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Westsyriens, zumindest aber in Qaṭna und Nija war”, “(auch) mit dem Hurritischen als lokaler Umgangssprache in Syrien zu rechnen ist” (both cites in Richter 2003: 174), “Thus, the previous tablet discoveries in Mišrife/Qaṭna, as well as those in 2002, show convincingly that Hurrian must have been a local language in Syria” (Richter 2005a: 115). In a more comprehensive work on the question of Hurrian in Syria, he points out that:

..., machen es verschiedene Überlegungen deutlich, daß das Hurritische in weiten Teilen der heutigen Republik Syrien gesprochene Sprache war und als Erstsprache (‘Muttersprache’) zu gelten hat, wenngleich man gegenwärtig davon wird ausgesehen müssen, daß es stets neben anderen (semitischen) Sprachen existierte, denen vermutlich ebenfalls der Status einer Umgangssprache zugebilligt werden muß (Richter 2005b: 147). 4. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS 4.1. The finds of Qaṭna must become part of a general reflection on the situation of Hurrian in

Ugarit society. Van Soldt (1991: 339-382, 521-522) has shown that a great Hurrian influence can be noted in the Akkadian of Ugarit used in the period of the most ancient Ugaritic kings, particularly in the syllabary, an influence which gradually decreases with the succeeding kings making way for a greater Assyrian and Ugaritic influence. Huehnergard (1989: 281-282), in his turn, sums up the syllabary, phonetic, grammatical and lexical Hurrian elements present in the Akkadian of Ugarit, but can only make a short list of seven words of Hurrian origin (with some doubts in certain cases) present in the Akkadian corpus as a whole. It seems obvious that, as shown by the texts, the contact between Hurrian and Ugaritic was, in the written form, much closer than between Akkadian and Hurrian, probably because the first two languages were local, generally spoken by the population of the kingdom and the scribes in particular, whereas Akkadian was not a living language27. The linguistic situation in Ugarit could have been very similar to that described by Richter regarding Qaṭna (cf. §3.7):

Sicher scheint lediglich zu sein, daß für die Regionen von 2ija und Qaṭna für die Spätbronzezeit mit drei Sprachen zu rechnen ist, deren zwei – Hurritisch und ein semitisches idiom – den Status einer gesprochenen Sprache gehabt haben dürften, während das Akkadische als Sprache der Korrespondenz und der Verwaltung wohl nur geschrieben, nicht aber im täglichen Leben gesprochen worden sein dürfte (Richter 2005b: 172-173). 4.2. Malbran-Labat (2002: 175) also makes the following consideration regarding Ugaritic

alphabet: on peut se demander si cette invention [of the alphabet] n’aurait pas eu un contexte religieux plutôt qu’économique. S’il en était ainsi, l’adoption d’un système graphique propre apparaîtrait comme la volonté de manifester par un support graphique proprement ougaritain l’enracinement autochtone de cette pensée religieuse et politique. This line of thought could also apply to the Hurrian texts from Ugarit using the local alphabet: as

opposed to Akkadian28, the Hurrian language may have been adapted, successfully, to the Ugaritic

27. Cf. van Soldt 1995: 186: “The way in which they wrote Akkadian shows that they had at least a passive knowledge of the

language, but that it certainly never attained the status of a language in which they were as fluent as their own”. 28. See Segert 1988; van Soldt 1991: 296-301.

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alphabetic system precisely because Hurrian was an essential and living element of the society and culture of Ugarit29. Perhaps we could reflect here again about the question posed by Malbran-Labat above (sub §2.5, Malbran-Labat 1999: 71) and about the idea expressed by Pardee (1996: 75) about the mixed alphabetic texts (Ugaritic and Hurrian; cf. §1.3.2): “Au cours de notre étude de ces tablettes, nous n’avons rien remarqué qui indique que les parties hourrites et ougaritiques des textes mélangés soient écrites par des scribes différents, ce qui pourrait indiquer que certains scribes étaient bilingues” or at least, as van Soldt proposes (1995: 186), “biscriptal”.

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