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A Grammar of the Ugaritic Language. By DANIEL SIVAN.
Translated by A. E RAINEY. Handbuch der Orientalistik, vol. 1, no. 28. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1997. Pp. xxi + 327. HF1 154, $96.25.
Daniel Sivan of Ben-Gurion University wrote this grammar for advanced students and scholars of Semitic languages. They will use this work for thorough interpretation of texts. The original approaches and suggestions will incite further research, especially in those matters which still await good solutions.
In the foreword (pp. xvii-xviii) the need for an up-to-date reference grammar of Ugaritic is mentioned. Sivan produced one in Hebrew, publishing it in 1993 in Jerusalem, (...) (...) (not listed on p. 236), and it was reviewed by E. Greenstein in the JAOS 117 (1997): 618-19. Sivan compares his grammar with Stanislav Segert's introductory grammar (1984), intended for students (p. xvii). An updated reprint of this book, A Basic Grammar of the Ugaritic Language, is now published by the University of California Press.
Sivan considers Ugaritic to be an independent Northwest Semitic language distinct from Canaanite (pp. 2-4). Ugaritians distinguished themselves from Canaanites geographically, but their language may be characterized as archaic Northern Canaanite. Some differences from the later Canaanite dialects (see p. 3) can be explained by this archaic character.
In the introduction (pp. 1-7) Sivan gives basic information about clay tablets, the...