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39-625: The Litani is named after the Ugaritic deity Ltn (reconstructed pronunciation līyitānu ), a seven-headed sea serpent and servant of the sea god Yam . The ī in the Lebanese name preserves the hypothesized ī in Ugaritic. The river that winds and coils like a serpent through the Beqaa Valley was believed to be the personification of the deity. Historians in the past have suggested that

78-529: A "South-Central" group which together with Aramaic forms Central Semitic. The Deir Alla Inscription and Samalian have been identified as language varieties falling outside Aramaic proper but with some similarities to it, possibly in an "Aramoid" or "Syrian" subgroup. It is clear that the Taymanitic script expressed a distinct linguistic variety that is not Arabic and not closely related to Hismaic or Safaitic, while it can tentatively be suggested that it

117-524: A World Nature Reserve, serves as an important point in global bird migration routes, hosting nearly 250 bird species. The Al Shouf Cedar Nature Reserve (55,000 ha), with its eastern section falling within the basin, contributes to the conservation of Lebanese cedars . After heading south parallel to the Syrian border, the course of the river bends westward. Near this bend, the Litani comes within five km of

156-545: A different status as such, rather being a normal sequence of a short vowel and a glide. Suchard proposes that: "*s, both from original *s and original *ṯ, then shifted further back to a postalveolar *š, while deaffrication of *ts and *dz to *s and *z gave these phonemes their Hebrew values, as well as merging original *dz with original *ḏ. In fact, original *s may have been realized as anything between [s] and [ʃ] ; both values are attested in foreign transcriptions of early Northwest Semitic languages". In Proto-Northwest Semitic

195-746: A form of the Aramaic language , spread throughout the Northwest Semitic region of the Levant, northern regions of the Arabian peninsula and southern regions of Anatolia, and gradually drove most of the other Northwest Semitic languages to extinction. The ancient Judaeans adopted Aramaic for daily use, and parts of the Tanakh are written in it. Hebrew was preserved, however, as a Jewish liturgical language and language of scholarship, and resurrected in

234-467: A separate branch of Northwest Semitic (alongside Canaanite) or a dialect of Amorite. Central Semitic is a proposed intermediate group comprising Northwest Semitic and Arabic . Central Semitic is either a subgroup of West Semitic or a top-level division of Semitic alongside East Semitic and South Semitic . SIL Ethnologue in its system of classification (of living languages only) eliminates Northwest Semitic entirely by joining Canaanite and Arabic in

273-467: Is verb–subject–object (VSO) and subject–object–verb (SOV), possessed–possessor (NG), and noun – adjective (NA). Ugaritic is considered a conservative Semitic language, since it retains most of the phonemes , the case system , and the word order of the ancestral Proto-Semitic language . Northwest Semitic languages Northwest Semitic is a division of the Semitic languages comprising

312-525: Is an extinct Northwest Semitic language known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeologists in 1928 at Ugarit , including several major literary texts, notably the Baal cycle . Ugaritic has been called "the greatest literary discovery from antiquity since the deciphering of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform ". The Ugaritic language is attested in texts from

351-431: Is marked by a prefixed *n(a)-. It is mediopassive which is a grammatical voice that subsumes the meanings of both the middle voice and the passive voice. In other words, it expresses a range of meanings where the subject is the patient of the verb, e.g. passive, medial, and reciprocal. The stem of the suffix conjugation is *naqṭal-, and the stem of the prefix conjugations is *-nqaṭil-; as is the case with stative G-stem verbs,

390-610: Is of fundamental importance in human history as the source and ancestor of the Greek alphabet , the later Latin alphabet , the Aramaic ( Square Hebrew ), Syriac , and Arabic writing systems, Germanic runes , and ultimately Cyrillic . From the 8th century BC, the use of Imperial Aramaic by the Neo-Assyrian Empire (935–608 BC) and the succeeding Neo-Babylonian Empire (612–539 BC) and Achaemenid Empire (539–332 BC),

429-926: Is spoken in modern dialects with an estimated one million fluent speakers by endangered indigenous populations scattered throughout the Middle East, most commonly by the Assyrians , Gnostic Mandeans , the Arameans (Syriacs) of Maaloula and Jubb'adin , and Mizrahi Jews . There is also an Aramaic substratum in Levantine and Mesopotamian Arabic . Phonologically , Ugaritic lost the sound *ṣ́ , replacing it with /sˁ/ ( ṣ ) (the same shift occurred in Canaanite and Akkadian ). That this same sound became /ʕ/ in Aramaic (although in Ancient Aramaic, it

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468-477: Is the basic, most common, unmarked stem. The G-stem expresses events. The vowel of the prefix of the prefix conjugations in Proto-Northwest Semitic was *-a- and the stem was *-qṭul- or *-qṭil-, as in *ya-qṭul-u 'he will kill', while the stem of the suffix conjugation had two *a vowels, as in *qaṭal-a 'he has killed'. The G stative is like the fientive but expressing states instead of events. For

507-589: Is the oldest example of the family of West Semitic scripts such as the Phoenician , Paleo-Hebrew , and Aramaic alphabets (including the Hebrew alphabet ). The so-called "long alphabet" has 30 letters while the "short alphabet" has 22. Other languages (particularly Hurrian ) were occasionally written in the Ugarit area, although not elsewhere. Clay tablets written in Ugaritic provide the earliest evidence of both

546-614: Is the same as that of the D-stem, and similarly, the participle is to be reconstructed as *musaqṭilum. All of the stems listed here, except the N-stem, could bring forth further derivation. The "internal passive stems" (Gp, Dp, and Cp; Hebrew passive qal , puʕal , and hɔp̄ʕal ) aren't marked by affixes, but express their passivity through a different vowel pattern. The Gp prefix conjugation can be reconstructed as *yu-qṭal-u 'he will be killed'. Reflexive or reciprocal meanings can be expressed by

585-739: The Battle of the Litani River . (Jisr means bridge in Arabic) Lake Qaraoun , an artificial lake of 12 square km, was created by the Litani River Dam , 60 meters high and 1,350 meters in length, which was completed in 1959. A spillway of 6503 meters carries the water to the underground station where generators produce a maximum of 185 megawatts of electricity, the largest hydroelectric project in Lebanon. The dam

624-533: The Hasbani River . The portion of the river flowing west is called the Qasimiyeh . The Qasmieh-Ras-el-Aïn region, irrigated from the river's lower reaches from main irrigation canals, to south and north, is one of the largest irrigated areas in the nation, consisting of 32.64 km², shared among 1257 irrigating farmers, who concentrate on citrus crops and bananas (Raad 2004). For the entire stretch of

663-637: The anachronism of Ezekiel mentioning Daniel in Ezekiel 14:13–16 actually referring to Danel , a hero from the Ugaritic Tale of Aqhat . The Ugaritic alphabet is a cuneiform script used beginning in the 15th century BC. Like most Semitic scripts, it is an abjad , where each symbol stands for a consonant, leaving the reader to supply the appropriate vowel. Although it appears similar to Mesopotamian cuneiform (whose writing techniques it borrowed), its symbols and symbol meanings are unrelated. It

702-665: The 14th through the 12th century BC. The city of Ugarit was destroyed roughly 1190 BC. Literary texts discovered at Ugarit include the Legend of Keret , the legends of Danel , the Myth of Baal-Aliyan , and the Death of Baal . The latter two are also known collectively as the Baal Cycle . All reveal aspects of ancient Northwest Semitic religion. Edward Greenstein has proposed that Ugaritic texts might help solve biblical puzzles such as

741-709: The 19th century, with modern adaptations, to become the Modern Hebrew language of the State of Israel . After the Muslim conquests of the 7th century, Arabic began to gradually replace Aramaic throughout the region. Classical Syriac-Aramaic survives today as the liturgical language of the Assyrian Church of the East , Syriac Orthodox Church , Chaldean Catholic Church , and other churches of Syriac Christians . It

780-635: The 850 meter head potential between Lake Qaraoun and the Mediterranean. This development has brought about major hydrological changes to the Litani River Basin, where the flows from its upper reaches above Lake Qaraoun, referred to as the Upper Litani Basin, are diverted through a system of tunnels, ponds and plants, to meet the Mediterranean several kilometers north of its original natural tailwater. These changes resulted in

819-522: The Canaanite group, the series of Semitic interdental fricatives become sibilants : *ð ( ḏ ), *θ ( ṯ ) and *θ̣ ( ṱ ) became /z/ , /ʃ/ ( š ) and /sˤ/ ( ṣ ) respectively. The effect of this sound shift can be seen by comparing the following words: Proto-Northwest Semitic had three contrastive vowel qualities and a length distinction, resulting in six vocalic phonemes: *a, *ā, *i, *ī, *u, and *ū. While *aw, *ay, *iw, *iy, *uw, and *uy are often referred to as diphthongs, they do not seem to have had

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858-637: The Levantine ordering of the alphabet, which gave rise to the alphabetic order of the Hebrew , Greek , and Latin alphabets; and the South Semitic order, which gave rise to the order of the Ge'ez script . The script was written from left to right. Ugaritic had 28 consonantal phonemes (including two semivowels ) and eight vowel phonemes (three short vowels and five long vowels): a ā i ī u ū ē ō . The phonemes ē and ō occur only as long vowels and are

897-596: The Qasimiyeh as it flows into the Mediterranean Sea , the Litani River remains nearly parallel to (and about 29 km (18 mi) north of) the Israeli-Lebanese border. 10 km north of Tyre, the river is crossed by the ancient Leontes Bridge . In June 1941, the mouth of the river was the site of an attack by British commandos and Australian troops on Vichy French forces that became known as

936-459: The Upper Litani Basin worth hundreds of millions of US dollars. A crucial aspect of the Litani River's importance lies in its role as an agricultural lifeline. It irrigates thousands of hectares of farmland, contributing significantly to Lebanon's food security. Approximately 31% of the income within the basin stems from agriculture, sustaining a considerable portion of the population. The Litani River contends with pollution concerns, impacting both

975-459: The country's total area. The basin spans 263 villages in 12 districts and 4 governorates, covering a significant portion of Lebanon's ecological landscape and contributing around 30% of the total water flow in the country. Within the basin of the Litani River, there are notable natural features, including Kafr Zabad (60 ha), characterized by marshland, constant springs, riparian woodland, and pine woodlands. The Aammiq wetlands (280 ha), designated

1014-432: The effective hydrological separation between the Upper Litani Basin and the lower reaches. The advent of a protracted civil strife in the 1970s followed by a prolonged occupation in the 1980s that lasted into the 1990s, plunged Lebanon into disarray, freezing development and investment in infrastructure. The return to normal conditions has encouraged the river authority to initiate several major water diversion projects from

1053-908: The emphatics were articulated with pharyngealization. Its shift to backing (as opposed to Proto-Semitic glottalization of emphatics) has been considered a Central Semitic innovation. According to Faber, the assimilation *-ṣt->-ṣṭ- in the Dt stem in Hebrew (hiṣṭaddēḳ ‘he declared himself righteous’) suggests backing rather than glottalization. The same assimilation is attested in Aramaic (yiṣṭabba ‘he will be moistened’). Three cases can be reconstructed for Proto-Northwest Semitic nouns ( nominative , accusative , genitive ), two genders (masculine, feminine) and three numbers (single, dual, plural). Proto-Northwest Semitic pronouns had 2 genders and 3 grammatical cases . nominative Reconstruction of Proto-Northwest Semitic numbers. The G fientive or G-stem (Hebrew qal )

1092-424: The form inherited from Proto-Semitic (i.e. *yuqaṭṭil-u), or as *-a-, which is somewhat supported by evidence from Ugaritic and Hebrew (*yaqaṭṭil-u). The C-stem (Hebrew hip̄ʕil ) more often than not expresses a causative meaning. The most likely reconstructions are *haqṭil- (from older *saqṭil-) for the stem of the suffix conjugation and *-saqṭil- for the stem of the prefix conjugations. The reconstructed prefix vowel

1131-896: The indigenous languages of the Levant . It emerged from Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age . It is first attested in proper names identified as Amorite in the Middle Bronze Age . The oldest coherent texts are in Ugaritic , dating to the Late Bronze Age , which by the time of the Bronze Age collapse are joined by Old Aramaic , and by the Iron Age by Sutean and the Canaanite languages ( Hebrew , Phoenician / Punic , Edomite and Moabite ). The term

1170-639: The late third millennium to the mid-second millennium BC and the language of the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions dated to the first half of the second millennium otherwise constitute the earliest traces of Northwest Semitic, the first Northwest Semitic language attested in full being Ugaritic in the 14th century BC. During the early 1st millennium, the Phoenician language was spread throughout the Mediterranean by Phoenician colonists , most notably to Carthage in today's Tunisia . The Phoenician alphabet

1209-440: The location of Biblical Misrephoth Maim , the place to which Joshua chased the various tribes after their defeat at the waters of Merom , was the river-mouth of the Litani River. The Litani River, stretching 174 km with 60 km of tributaries, traverses diverse climates from coastal subtropical to dry continental. Its basin encompasses 2110 km2, making it the largest watershed in Lebanon and covering about 20% of

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1248-482: The prefix conjugation of stative roots, the vowel of the prefix was *-i- and it contained an *a vowel, e.g. *yi-kbad-u 'he will become heavy', while the second vowel of the suffix conjugation was either *-i-, as in *kabid-a 'he is/was/will be heavy', or *-u-, as in *ʕamuq-a 'it is/was/will be deep'. Whether the G-stem stative suffix conjugation has *i or *u in the stem is lexically determined. The N-stem (Hebrew nip̄ʕal )

1287-507: The prefix vowel is *-i-, resulting in forms like *yi-nqaṭil-u 'he will be killed'. The D-stem (Hebrew piʕel ) is marked by gemination of the second radical in all forms. It has a range of different meanings, mostly transitive. The stem of the suffix conjugation is *qaṭṭil-, and the same stem is used for the prefix conjugations. It is not clear whether the Proto-Northwest-Semitic prefix vowel should be reconstructed as *-u-,

1326-769: The result of monophthongization of the diphthongs аy and aw , respectively. The following table shows Proto-Semitic phonemes and their correspondences among Ugaritic, Classical Arabic and Tiberian Hebrew : Ugaritic is an inflected language , and its grammatical features are highly similar to those found in Akkadian , Classical Arabic and, to a lesser extent, Biblical Hebrew . It possesses two genders (masculine and feminine), three grammatical cases for nouns and adjectives ( nominative , accusative , and genitive ), three numbers (singular, dual, and plural), and verb aspects similar to those found in other Northwest Semitic languages . The word order for Ugaritic

1365-604: The river itself and the Qaraaoun Reservoir. Numerous studies, including microbiological and chemical analyses, revealed contamination exceeding standard levels. The root causes include uncontrolled sewage disposal and the indiscriminate use of fertilizers in agriculture, threatening both water quality and the health of the river. 33°20′20″N 35°14′43″E  /  33.33889°N 35.24528°E  / 33.33889; 35.24528 Ugaritic Ugaritic ( / ˌ j uː ɡ ə ˈ r ɪ t ɪ k , ˌ uː -/ )

1404-456: Was coined by Carl Brockelmann in 1908, who separated Fritz Hommel 's 1883 classification of Semitic languages into Northwest ( Canaanite and Aramaic ), East Semitic ( Akkadian , its Assyrian and Babylonian dialects, Eblaite ) and Southwest ( Arabic , Old South Arabian languages and Abyssinian ). Brockelmann's Canaanite sub-group includes Ugaritic , Phoenician and Hebrew . Some scholars now regard Ugaritic either as belonging to

1443-489: Was intended eventually to provide irrigation for 310 km² of farmland in South Lebanon and 80 km² in the Beqaa Valley. The office is at the southern (dam) end of the lake on the left side. The Litani River Authority was formed in 1954 to facilitate the integrated development of the Litani River Basin. Shortly after its formation, the authority engaged in a massive hydroelectric development project that tapped

1482-560: Was more closely related to Northwest Semitic. The time period for the split of Northwest Semitic from Proto-Semitic or from other Semitic groups is uncertain. Richard C. Steiner suggested in 2011 that the earliest attestation of Northwest Semitic is to be found in snake spells from the Egyptian Pyramid Texts , dating to the mid-third millennium BC. Amorite personal names and words in Akkadian and Egyptian texts from

1521-413: Was written with qoph ), suggests that Ugaritic is not the parent language of the group. An example of this sound shift can be seen in the word for earth : Ugaritic /ʔarsˁ/ ( ’arṣ ), Punic /ʔarsˁ/ ( ’arṣ ), Tiberian Hebrew /ʔɛrɛsˁ/ ( ’ereṣ ), Biblical Hebrew /ʔarsˁ/ ( ’arṣ ) and Aramaic /ʔarʕaː/ ( ’ar‘ā’ ). The vowel shift from *aː to /oː/ distinguishes Canaanite from Ugaritic. Also, in

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