Language and Nature
John Huehnergard (photo by Christopher Rose)
Language and Nature papers presented to John Huehnergard on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday edited by Rebecca hasselbach and Naʿama pat-el studies in ancient ORIENTAL civilization number 67 the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago Chicago Illinois
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011933159 ISBN-10: 1-885923-91-0 ISBN-13: 978-1-885923-91-2 ISSN: 0081-7554 The Oriental Institute, Chicago 2012 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Published 2012. Printed in the United States of America. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization Number 67 The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago Series Editors Leslie Schramer and Thomas G. Urban with Rebecca Cain and Zuhal Kuru Series Editors Acknowledgments Jessen O Brien and Tate Paulette assisted in the production of this volume. Cover prepared by Kristy Shuey of 2nd Street Design Lab, Austin, Texas Selection of Ethiopic, Ugaritic, Akkadian, Hebrew, and Old South Arabian texts. We thank the Semitic Museum, Harvard University, Wayne T. Pitard, and John Huehnergard for their use. Printed by McNaughton & Gunn, Saline, Michigan The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Services Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Table of Contents Contributors and Affiliations... Preface. Rebecca Hasselbach and Naʿama Pat-El... John as a Teacher and Mentor. Rebecca Hasselbach and Naʿama Pat-El... Students of John Huehnergard... The Research of John Huehnergard. Rebecca Hasselbach and Naʿama Pat-El... Publications of John Huehnergard... A Brief Note on the Festschrift Illustrations. X Bonnie Woods... Contributions 1. Functional Values of iprus Forms in Old Babylonian šumma Protases. Eran Cohen... 1 2. The Hypotaxis-Parataxis Dichotomy and Elliptic Conditional Clauses in Semitic. Lutz Edzard... 13 3. t-stem Verbs without Metathesis in Aramaic and Hebrew Documents from the Judean Desert. Steven E. Fassberg... 27 4. People without Town: The ʿapiru in the Amarna Evidence. Daniel E. Fleming... 39 5. Denominal, Lexicalized hiphil Verbs. W. Randall Garr... 51 6. The Treatment of Vowel Length in Arabic Grammar and Its Adaptation to Hebrew. Gideon Goldenberg... 59 7. Wisdom in Ugaritic. Edward L. Greenstein... 69 8. Predicate Nominals and Related Constructions in Neo-Mandaic. Charles G. Häberl... 91 9. Yaqtul and a Ugaritic Incantation Text. Jo Ann Hackett... 111 10. The Verbal Endings -u and -a: A Note on Their Functional Derivation. Rebecca Hasselbach... 119 11. Ibn Khaldūn as a Historical Linguist with an Excursus on the Question of Ancient gāf. Wolfhart Heinrichs... 137 12. A Morphosyntactic Explanation of tǝpôṣôtîkem (Jer 25:34). Jeremy M. Hutton... 151 13. Canaano-Akkadian: Linguistics and Sociolinguistics. Shlomo Izre el... 171 14. The Evidential Function of the Perfect in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic Dialects. Geoffrey Khan... 219 15. Les noms de plantes akkadiens dans leur contexte sémitique. Leonid Kogan... 229 16. Grammaticalization and the Biblical Hebrew Pseudo-Cohortative. Paul Korchin... 269 17. The Biblical Hebrew Verbal System in a Nutshell. Dennis Pardee... 285 18. The Syntax of ʾǎšer and šec Yet Again. Naʿama Pat-El... 319 19. Late Biblical Hebrew in the Book of Haggai. Gary A. Rendsburg... 329 20. Two Modern South Arabian Etymologies. Aaron D. Rubin... 345 21. If Water Had Not Been Made to Dry Up, This Earth Would Have Been Drowned : Pahlavi *āwās- to dry. Prods Oktor Skjærvø.... 353 22. Vowel Syncope and Syllable Repair Processes in Proto-Semitic Construct Forms: A New Reconstruction Based on the Law of Diminishing Conditioning. Richard C. Steiner... 365 23. Reconciling Some Morphological Eccentricities of the Semitic Genitive Case Marker. David Testen... 391 24. Mixed Linguistic Features in a Judeo-Arabic Text from Algeria: The šarḥ to the hafṭarot from Constantine. Ofra Tirosh-Becker... 407 25. Alternierende Metrik in der akkadischen Poesie. Josef Tropper... 433 26. On Personal Names Ending in -āyu in the Amarna Letters and in Texts from Canaan. Wilfred van Soldt... 443 27. Jumping Spiders (Araneae: Salticidae) of the Concord Area, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. Richard K. Walton.... 451 28. Verbal Endings in the Afroasiatic Prefix Conjugations. Andrzej Zaborski... 459 29. Prepositional Phrases as Subjects in Several Semitic Languages. Tamar Zewi......................................... 465 v vi vii ix x xi xiii xviii
Contributors and Affiliations Eran Cohen, Department of Linguistics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Lutz Edzard, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo Steven E. Fassberg, Department of Hebrew Language, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Daniel E. Fleming, Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University W. Randall Garr, Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara Gideon Goldenberg, Department of Linguistics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Edward L. Greenstein, Department of Bible, Bar Ilan University Charles G. Häberl, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Rutgers University Jo Ann Hackett, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, The University of Texas at Austin Rebecca Hasselbach, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago Wolfhart Heinrichs, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University Jeremy M. Hutton, Department of Hebrew and Semitic Studies, University of Wisconsin Madison Shlomo Izre el, Department of Hebrew Culture, Section of Semitic Linguistics, Tel Aviv University Geoffrey Khan, Hebrew and Semitic Studies, University of Cambridge Leonid Kogan, Institute of Oriental and Classical Studies, Russian State University for the Humanities Paul Korchin, Religion Program, University of Alaska Fairbanks Dennis Pardee, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago Naʿama Pat-El, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, The University of Texas at Austin Gary A. Rendsburg, Department of Jewish Studies, Rutgers University Aaron D. Rubin, Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Penn State University Prods Oktor Skjærvø, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University Richard C. Steiner, Bernard Revel Graduate School, Yeshiva University David Testen Ofra Tirosh-Becker, Department of Hebrew Language, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Josef Tropper, Theologische Fakultät, Humboldt-Universität, Berlin Wilfred van Soldt, Institute for Area Studies, Leiden University Richard K. Walton, Author and Videographer X Bonnie Woods, Artist and Designer Andrzej Zaborski, Afroasiatic Linguistics, Jagellonian University, Krakow Tamar Zewi, Department of Hebrew Language, Haifa University vi
Preface This volume includes thirty contributions twenty-nine papers and one artistic contribution by John s colleagues, former students, and friends, on a variety of topics, representing John s versatility and many interests: Eran Cohen reviews and discusses the functional value of Akkadian iprus in conditional clauses in epistolary and legal texts. Cohen points to the syntactic environment and the genre as conditioning factors. Lutz Edzard discusses the Akkadian injunctive šumma, used in oath formulae, where it expresses positive statement when it is followed by a negation particle. Edzard examines whether this pattern should be considered an elliptical conditional. Steven E. Fassberg deals with verbal t-forms that do not exhibit the expected metathesis in Hebrew and Aramaic of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Fassberg suggests an explanation on the basis of diachronic evidence as well as comparative evidence from other Aramaic dialects. Daniel F. Fleming asks who were the ʿApiru people mentioned in Egyptian texts in the Late Bronze Age and what was their social standing as is reflected in the Amarna letters. Randall Garr studies one class of denominal hiphil verbs and asks why these verbs are assigned to the causative stem despite their non-causative semantic content. Gideon Goldenberg discusses the concept of vocalic length and the status of yā, waw, and ʾalif in Arabic grammatical tradition and in the medieval Hebrew tradition that was its product. Ed Greenstein suggests that the roots of biblical wisdom can be located in second-millennium Canaanite literature by identifying wisdom sayings and themes in the Ugaritic corpus. This is a part of the author s ongoing research into this genre. Charles Häberl looks into predicates of verbless sentences in Semitic and particularly in Neo-Mandaic, which exhibits syntactic subtleties not found in the classical Semitic languages. Jo Ann Hackett takes another look at Ugaritic yaqtul and argues for the existence of a preterite yaqtul, contra several recent studies. Rebecca Hasselbach tackles the evasive origin of the Semitic verbal endings -u and -a and explains their development in the various branches. Wolfhart Heinrichs s contribution is a study of a passage from Ibn Khaldūn s Muqaddima on the pronunciation of Arabic qāf. This study shows that Ibn Khaldūn held innovative views of language and its evolution. Jeremy Hutton sheds more light on tg forms in Biblical Hebrew, through an analysis of the anomalous form təpôṣôtîkem. This study further uses comparative evidence to suggest a better understanding of this, and similar forms. Shlomo Izre el offers a revised and improved version of his important study of the language of the Amarna letters, so far available only as an unpublished manuscript. Geoffrey Khan discusses the functional differences between the preterite and the perfect in NENA. Khan suggests that one of the functions of the perfect is marking a speaker s attitude toward the event. Leonid Kogan offers a comparative etymological study of botanical terminology in Akkadian. Paul Korchin argues that occurrences of the cohortative in Biblical Hebrew that do not conform to the normative volitive function, the so-called pseudo-cohortatives, represent instances of a centrifugal directive affix expressing motion away from the speaker/main event. vii
viii Preface Dennis Pardee provides a detailed description and explanation of his understanding of the Hebrew verbal system as primarily expressing aspect, tense only secondarily. Naʿama Pat-El continues the discussion of the origin of the Hebrew relative particle šec- from a syntactic perspective. She argues that, based on its syntactic distributions, the origin of the particle from the relative particle ăšer as proposed by John Huehnergard is more likely than a recent suggestion that the two particles are unrelated. Gary A. Rendsburg argues in favor of Late Biblical Hebrew features in the book of Haggai against Young, Rezetko, and Ehrensvärd, who denied the presence of such features in the text. Rendsburg argues that Late Biblical Hebrew features are found in various layers of grammar and style throughout the book. Aaron D. Rubin provides Semitic etymologies of two Modern South Arabian words, lxm shark, and Mehri nǝxāli under. Prods Oktor Skjærvø elucidates a passage from the Pahlavi Rivāyat and discusses the Pahlavi verb *āwās to dry. Richard C. Steiner discusses a universal that governs the evolution of phonological rules and applies it to the reconstruction of Proto-Semitic. He proposes a new vowel syncope rule for Proto-Semitic construct forms that accounts for many alternations and biforms throughout the Semitic languages, and for phonological enigmas such as Hebrew šte y two of (fem.), mǝ läḵäṯ queen of, lǝ ḇän white of, Aramaic tarte y two of (fem.), Arabic (i)smu name of, Mehri bǝrt daughter of, and Akkadian ašti wife of (gen.). David Testen argues that the traditionally reconstructed case system is a secondary development and that the original system should be reconstructed with a contrast of nominative *-u- and a genitive with two allomorphs, *-i- and *-ay-. Ofra Tirosh-Becker discusses the language of a Judeo-Arabic translation of portions of the books of Prophets and argues that the language is characterized by a mixture of conservative and colloquial linguistic elements. Josef Tropper argues that Akkadian poetry, as well as Northwest Semitic poetry, are based on certain metric principles, based on stressed and unstressed syllables. Wilfred van Soldt lists and discusses personal names ending in -āyu from Amarna. This contribution is a continuation of his recent work studying the orthography of personal names in this language. Richard K. Walton, a naturalist with a special interest in Concord, Massachusetts, contributes a paper about the jumping spiders (Araneae: Salticidae) of the region. His short paper is accompanied by a series of videos showing these spiders in their natural habitats. Andrzej Zaborski, in the sole Afroasiatic contribution, suggests that Berber and Cushitic preserve archaic features that have been lost for the most part in the Semitic languages. One such example, which is discussed at length, is the verbal suffixes of the prefix conjugation. Tamar Zewi offers a comparative study that purports to show that prepositional phrases function as subjects in a variety of Semitic languages. Zewi provides a constructive discussion and suggests a number of explanations to this phenomenon. We started working on this volume in early 2009 without John s knowledge and with the help of his wife and our teacher, Jo Ann Hackett. We wish to thank all the contributors to this Festschrift for their participation and for their help and patience. Special thanks go to Jo Ann Hackett, who was always ready to answer our questions and offer invaluable advice. Finally, we wish to thank the Oriental Institute and Thomas Urban, Leslie Schramer, and Rebecca Cain for their help with the publication. Rebecca Hasselbach Naʿama Pat-El
John as a Teacher and Mentor Being one of John s students has been a great honor and, at the same time, a bit of a challenge. It is hard not to become too exuberant when describing our time at Harvard NELC, and we know that many of his students feel the same. Given the size of the field in Semitic linguistics, John does not admit many students, and we all remember the moment when, sitting in his office as a prospective student, he advised us to seriously consider a minor field in addition to Semitic philology to enhance our later prospects, just in case. Most of us did not take his advice, not because we did not appreciate it, but because it was hard enough to live up to his expectations in Semitic linguistics, let alone take on another field of study. John himself regularly audits classes in other departments, showing us that education does not have an end point. As for his life outside academia, John is a very private man. We all read his papers and knew his opinions about everything Semitic, but most of us knew little of how he spends his free time and what are his hobbies and nonlinguistic interests. It took quite a bit of inquiry to discover that he is a passionate bird watcher and naturalist and even co-authored articles on nature. Visiting his Carlisle home for his annual BBQ for students, we learned of his passion for Darwin (both man and dog) and his love for art and photography. Only after he went through knee surgery did we know of his habit to run marathons. How he finds time for all this is still a mystery. As a teacher and mentor, he treated us all equally with professional respect. He might not have discussed many issues concerning his life outside academia, but once we raised a linguistic issue, a wealth of information would pour out uninterrupted: the history of the debate, major breakthroughs, empirical data, and references. If he did not remember something, out came a 3-by-5-inch index card from his front pocket, on which he would quickly scribble the request with a fancy pen to attend to it later. Many of us still seek his advice and opinion even as we hold our own teaching positions. His enthusiasm to share his knowledge does not set him apart from other great teachers; what does, however, is his willingness to share his own ideas and even unpublished research without limit. On many occasions, once learning of a student s interest in a certain topic, he would hand over his notes and data he had collected for years. He never limited his gift, never asked not to use it and never demanded to be mentioned in the paper: on the contrary. (We secretly refer to it as John s Freedom of Information Act. ) This character trait shows his unequaled prioritization of scholarship and dissemination of knowledge over personal fame. The obvious result is seen in the many papers he co-authored with his students. Indeed, John treats his students as peers and expects them to be mature scholars while in graduate school. His famous Turbo-Hebrew class is a classic example. In this class students are requested to research the text and its linguistic pitfalls before coming to class, not merely read it and sit sheepishly in the room while he untangles the difficulties for them. This attitude and his subtle pressure on all his students to conform to the highest academic levels produced and instilled confidence in us. His teaching does not end with supplying us with knowledge and understanding our limits; one of the major things he exemplifies is respect, toward both peers and adversaries. He takes everyone seriously, no matter how wrong he thinks the person s ideas might be. He does not speak ill of those with whom he disagrees, and he teaches his students to learn from everything and everyone. His criticism of others is always professional, deferential, and gracious, and he asks his students to behave similarly, in person as well as publicly. While each of us carries many personal anecdotes about John and our time as his students, we all share reverence for him as a mentor and advisor, and we see him as a paragon of excellence in scholarship and intellect. Rebecca Hasselbach Naʿama Pat-El ix
Students of John Huehnergard 1996 Edwina M. Wright Studies in Semitic Historical Semantics: Words for Man and Woman 1996 Joshua T. Fox Noun Patterns in the Semitic Languages 1997 Paul V. Mankowski Akkadian and Trans-Akkadian Loanwords in Biblical Hebrew 1998 Eugen J. Pentiuc Studies in Emar Lexicon 1999 Allan C. Emery Weapons of the Israelite Monarchy: A Catalogue with Its Linguistic and Crosscultural Implications 2001 Paul D. Korchin Markedness and Semitic Morphology 2001 Chulhyun Bae Comparative Studies of King Darius s Bisitun Inscription 2004 Rebecca Hasselbach A Historical and Comparative Study of Sargonic Akkadian 2004 Aaron D. Rubin Studies in Semitic Grammaticalization 2005 Mark Arnold Categorization of the Hitpa el of Classical Hebrew 2005 David Elias Tigre of Habab: Short Grammar and Texts from the Rigbat People 2006 Charles G. Häberl The Neo-Mandaic Dialect of Khorramshahr 2008 Naʿama Pat-El Studies in the Historical Syntax of Aramaic 2009 Elitzur Bar-Asher A Theory of Argument Realization and Its Application to Features of the Semitic Languages 2012 Ahmad Al-Jallad Ancient Levantine Arabic: A Reconstruction based on the Earliest Sources and the Modern Dialects x
The Research of John Huehnergard For over thirty years, John Huehnergard has rigorously advanced the study of Semitic philology through his work on the languages of the ancient Near East and the Semitic language family as a whole. John s research is truly exceptional in its breadth and depth and has become an important milestone in the field of comparative semitics. His work ranges from studies of sounds, morphemes, syntax, and etymologies of words in individual Semitic languages; descriptions and grammars of languages such as Akkadian and Ugaritic; and editions of ancient texts to important reconstructions of Proto-Semitic features and even descriptions of the Swamp Milkweed Leaf Beetle found in Carlisle, Massachusetts. The courses he taught throughout his career likewise reflect the breadth of his scholarship. These include classes in all levels of Akkadian and Hebrew, various dialects of Aramaic, Ethiopian Semitic in its various ancient and modern forms, Old South Arabian, Ugaritic, classes in Semitic linguistics, and even Middle Egyptian. John s work is an inspiration for every scholar in the field and his rigorous application of linguistic methodology a guideline for his students and future scholars. John s interest in Semitic languages began when he went to college at Wilfried Laurier University (Waterloo, Ontario), where he studied religion and culture. One summer, he took a class in Hebrew, and this class got him hooked on ancient Semitic languages. He graduated from college in 1974 and, after an influential conversation with M. Coogan, who at this time taught at St. Thomas, decided to go to Harvard to work on Semitic languages. At Harvard, he studied with T. O. Lambdin, F. M. Cross, and W. L. Moran. After John discovered Akkadian, Moran became his primary mentor. Even before graduating from Harvard with distinction in 1979, John became an assistant professor at Columbia University (1978 1983), where he taught Akkadian, Ugaritic, and Mesopotamian and Egyptian history in the departments of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures and History. In 1983, he was appointed associate professor at Harvard University, where he worked until 2009 as professor of Semitic Philology. In 2009, he moved to Austin, where he is now teaching in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas. It is impossible to give recognition to all the various projects John has worked on so far and his achievements in a short introduction to his scholarship. The following is merely an attempt to focus on some of his major interests, being aware that this short description cannot give full credit to a scholar like John. Most of John s early work, including his dissertation, and a significant number of his later studies are on Semitic languages that are part of ancient Near Eastern cuneiform culture. His first book Ugaritic Vocabulary in Syllabic Transcription, published in 1987 (revised edition 2008), is a compilation of Ugaritic words that are attested in Akkadian texts written at Ugarit. The study serves to enhance our understanding of Ugaritic a language usually written in a consonantal alphabet with only few vowel indications. By analyzing syllabically written material, John made major improvements to our understanding of Ugaritic phonology and, as a direct consequence, its morphology. Another ancient Near Eastern language John has worked on assiduously is Akkadian, including its various dialects. His main interest lies in the reconstruction and understanding of developments of certain linguistic features. His work on Akkadian includes numerous articles on Akkadian phonology, morphology, and syntax, such as Asseverative *la- and Hypothetical *lū/law in Semitic (1983), which goes beyond Akkadian and is still a major work on the reconstruction of asseverative particles across Semitic; the seminal On Verbless Clauses in Akkadian (1986), which establishes and explains certain word order phenomena involving predicate and subject in Akkadian verbless clauses that lead to important distinctions of this clause type also in Proto Semitic; Stative, Predicative, Pseudo-verb (1987), an article that deals with the status of the Akkadian stative as either verbless clause or (partially) verbalized, an issue that is very much debated among Semitic scholars; the important dialect study on The Akkadian of Ugarit (1989), a monograph that investigates all Akkadian texts from Ugarit regarding orthography, phonology, morphology, and syntax; and Akkadian ḫ and West Semitic *ḥ (2003), which suggests the existence of a thirtieth Proto Semitic consonant the traditional reconstruction assumes twenty-nine consonantal phonemes for Proto Semitic. This reconstruction also argues for a voiced-voiceless-emphatic triad in the gutturals. John s work on Akkadian culminates in the Grammar of Akkadian (1997; 3rd edition, 2011), a teaching and reference grammar of Akkadian that is now used as the standard introduction to Akkadian in universities around the world. xi
xii The Research of John Huehnergard Besides Akkadian and Ugaritic, John has worked on many other Semitic languages, specifically Northwest Semitic languages such as Hebrew and Aramaic. Some of his studies on these languages include The Feminine Plural Jussive in Old Aramaic (1987), which, based on epigraphic data, establishes that Aramaic originally had a feminine plural ending on verbs na like Hebrew and Arabic. This discovery, in turn, allows us to reconstruct this ending as a feminine plural marker for Proto Semitic. His article Historical Phonology and the Hebrew Piel (1992) provides a detailed discussion of the various forms of the D-stem in Semitic and its different vocalizations in the perfect, which again leads to a revised reconstruction of this stem in early Semitic. The article Hebrew Verbs I-w/y and a Proto-Semitic Semitic Sound Rule (2005) equally goes beyond Hebrew and attempts to explain assimilations of the semi-vowels /w/ and /y/ in Semitic languages that probably go back as far as Proto Semitic. As these few examples of John s research show, his studies, although they often start out with a phonological or morphological problem in a single Semitic language, go beyond the scope of the language in question and have important implications for the reconstruction of Proto Semitic. Throughout his research, John has made major progress in the reconstruction of Proto Semitic that has radically changed our understanding of the language family. His article on Afro-Asiatic (2008) summarizes his work up to this point and represents a brief description of Proto Semitic as far as we can reconstruct it today. Another major interest of John is Semitic sub-grouping. In his research, he has greatly improved our understanding of how the individual Semitic languages are related to one another by establishing innovative features that mark different sub-branches of Semitic and by making a strict distinction between true innovations and archaic retentions. The currently widely used Semitic family tree is much more firmly established thanks to John s meticulous work. His work on sub-grouping includes studies on various sub-branches and individual languages of Semitic, such as Remarks on the Classification of the Northwest Semitic Languages (1991), where John argues for an independent and new branch of Northwest Semitic that is represented by the inscription found at Deir Alla (Jordan) this inscription has long defied classification as either Canaanite or Aramaic and What Is Aramaic? (1998), an article in which John provides the first detailed overview of which features can actually be reconstructed to Proto Aramaic and serve as identifying characteristics of this language. In addition, John has written various articles on Semitic sub-grouping in general, including Features of Central Semitic (2005) and the Phyla and Waves: Models of Classification (2011). Many of the features that determine sub-grouping in Semitic are also found in John s more descriptive works on Semitic languages, such as Languages: Introductory Survey (1992), Semitic Languages (1995), and Introduction to Beyond Babel (2002). These surveys of Semitic languages and their main features are major reference works for scholars from all fields who wish to familiarize themselves with the basics of Semitic languages and Semitic linguistics. In all of his research, John strictly adheres to the principles and methodologies of historical and comparative linguistics. Combined with his eye for detail, this methodological rigor is what truly marks his work. In years of teaching, he has imparted his diligent methodology and enthusiasm for Semitic languages to generations of students who follow in his footsteps and have become leading scholars in the field of Semitic linguistics. John is truly an exceptional and remarkable scholar, and it is a great honor to present this volume to him. Rebecca Hasselbach Naʿama Pat-El
Publications of John Huehnergard 1979 the Akkadian Dialects of Carchemish and Ugarit. Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University. 1981 Akkadian Evidence for Case-vowels on Ugaritic Bound Forms. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 33: 199 205. 1982 El-Amarna Letter 252. With Baruch Halpern. Orientalia 51: 227 30. Review of R. Caplice, Introduction to Akkadian. With Daniel C. Snell. Bibliotheca Orientalis 39: 122 31. 1983 Asseverative *la- and Hypothetical *lū/law in Semitic. Journal of the American Oriental Society 103: 569 93. Five Tablets from the Vicinity of Emar. Revue d Assyriologie 77: 11 43. 1984 On Breaking Teeth. With Jo Ann Hackett. Harvard Theological Review 77: 259 75. 1985 Biblical Notes on Some New Akkadian Texts from Emar (Syria). The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 47: 428 34. A Dt Stem in Ugaritic? Ugarit-Forschungen 17: 402. 1986 On Verbless Clauses in Akkadian. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 76: 218 49. RS 15.86 (PRU 3, 51f.). Ugarit-Forschungen 18: 169 71. RS 19.55 (PRU 4, 293b). Ugarit-Forschungen 18: 453. Review of A. Abou-Assaf, P. Bordreuil, and A. R. Millard, La statue de Tell Fekherye. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 261: 91 95. Review of F. E. Greenspahn, Hapax Legomena in Biblical Hebrew. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 264: 88 90. Note brève (**šanā iš). Revue d Assyriologie 80: 191. Texts and Fragments (an Ur III Tablet in the Collection of the Museum of World Cultures, UNC Wilmington). Journal of Cuneiform Studies 38: 245. 1987 Ugaritic Vocabulary in Syllabic Transcription. Harvard Semitic Studies 32. Atlanta: Scholars. Stative, Predicative, Pseudo-Verb. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 46: 215 32. The Feminine Plural Jussive in Old Aramaic. Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 137: 266 77. Northwest Semitic Vocabulary in Akkadian Texts. Review of D. Sivan Grammatical Analysis and Glossary. Journal of the American Oriental Society 107: 713 25. Three Notes on Akkadian Morphology. In Working with No Data: Semitic and Egyptian Studies Presented to Thomas O. Lambdin, edited by D. Golomb, pp. 181 94. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Thomas O. Lambdin. In Working with No Data: Semitic and Egyptian Studies Presented to Thomas O. Lambdin, edited by D. Golomb, pp. ix xii. Review of W. R. Garr, Dialect Geography of Syria-Palestine, 1000 586 B.C.E. Journal of Biblical Literature 106: 529 33. 1988 The Early Hebrew Prefix-conjugations. Hebrew Studies 29: 19 23. The Museum of World Cultures Elamite Brick. Discoveries (Newsletter of the Museum of World Cultures, UNC Wilmington): February 1988. articles Ctesiphon, Cuneiform, and Elamite. In The Encyclopedia of Asian History, edited by A. T. Embree. New York: Scribner s. 1989 The Akkadian of Ugarit. Harvard Semitic Studies 34. Atlanta: Scholars. 1990 Lingering over Words: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Literature in Honor of William L. Moran. Co-editor with I. Tzvi Abush and Piotr Steinkeller. Harvard Semitic Studies 37. Atlanta: Scholars. xiii
xiv Publications of John Huehnergard 1991 Remarks on the Classification of the Northwest Semitic Languages. In The Balaam Text from Deir Alla Reevaluated (Proceedings of the International Symposium held at Leiden 21 24 August 1989), edited by J. Hoftijzer and G. van der Kooij, pp. 282 93. Leiden: Brill. More on KI.erṣetu at Emar. Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 2/58: 39. Further South Semitic Cognates to the Akkadian Lexicon. In Semitic Studies in Honor of Wolf Leslau on the Occasion of his Eighty-fifth Birthday November 14th, 1991, edited by A. S. Kaye, vol. 1, pp. 690 713. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. 1992 Languages: Introductory Survey. In Anchor Bible Dictionary, edited by D. N. Freedman, vol. 4, pp. 155 70. New York: Doubleday. Hurrian In Anchor Bible Dictionary, edited by D. N. Freedman, vol. 4, pp. 216 17. Historical Phonology and the Hebrew Piel. In Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew, edited by W. R. Bodine, pp. 209 29. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. The Twentieth North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics. Languages of the World and Linguistic News Lines 5/3: 59 60. 1993 The Development of the Third Person Suffixes in Phoenician. Maarav 7: 183 94. The Twentieth North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics. Orientalia 62: 11 13. Meskene (Imar/Emar), A. Philologisch. In Reallexicon der Assyriologie, edited by D. O. Edzard, vol. 8, p. 83. New York: de Gruyter. 1994 Review of J. Levi, Die Inkonguenz im biblischen Hebräisch. Hebrew Studies 35: 174 81. 1995 sām: The Semitic Languages. An Overview. With Andrew Rippin and Wolfhart Heinrichs. In Encyclopedia of Islam, vol. 8, pp. 1007 11. Leiden: Brill. Semitic Languages. In Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, edited by J. M. Sasson, vol. 4, pp. 2117 34. New York: Scribners. OBCT Hamrin Basin no.21. N.A.B.U. 4/106: 92 93. No šukunu at Ras Shamra. N.A.B.U. 4/107: 93. Introduction, Dialects of Aramaic, Orthography and Phonology, Glossary, Bibliography, and revisions to main text in T. O. Lambdin, An Introduction to the Aramaic of Targum Onqelos. Cambridge: Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. 1996 A Byblos Letter, Probably from Kāmid el-lōz. Zeitschrift der Assyriologie 86: 97 113. Reprinted in Kāmid el-lōz, vol. 20: Die Keilschriftbriefe und der Horizont von el-amarna, edited by Rolf Hackmann, pp. 87 102. Bonn: Rudolf Habelt. New Directions in the Study of Semitic Languages. In The Study of the Ancient Near East in the Twentyfirst Century: The William Foxwell Albright Centennial Conference, edited by J. Cooper and G. M. Schwartz, pp. 251 72. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. 1997 A Grammar of Akkadian. Harvard Semitic Studies 45. Atlanta: Scholars. Key to A Grammar of Akkadian. Harvard Semitic Studies 46. Atlanta: Scholars. Akkadian. In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, edited by E. M. Meyers, vol. 1, pp. 44 49. New York: Oxford. Emar Texts. In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, edited by E. M. Meyers, vol. 2, pp. 239 40. Akkadian Grammar. Review article of W. von Soden with W. Mayer, Grundriss der akkadischen Grammatik (third edition). Orientalia 66: 434 44. The Form i-na-a-ku-um-mi in KBo 1 5 iii 59. N.A.B.U. 4/139: 129 30. 1998 A Grammar of Akkadian. Second, revised printing. Harvard Semitic Studies 45. Atlanta: Scholars. Notes on Ras Shamra-Ougarit VII. Review article of P. Bordreuil, ed., Une bibliothèque au sud de la ville: les texts de la 34 e campagne (1973). Syria 74: 213 20. What is Aramaic? Aram 7: 265 86. A Grammar of Amarna Canaanite. Review article of A. F. Rainey, Canaanite in the Amarna Letters, 4 volumes. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 310: 59 77.
Publications of John Huehnergard xv 1999 Ugaritic Words in Syllabic Texts. In Handbook of Ugaritic Studies, edited by W. G. E. Watson and N. Wyatt, pp. 134 39. Leiden: Brill. The Akkadian Letters. In Handbook of Ugaritic Studies, edited by W. G. E. Watson and N. Wyatt, pp. 375 89. On the Etymology and Meaning of Hebrew nābî ʾ. Eretz Israel 26: 88* 93*. A Cuneiform Lexical Text from Ashkelon with a Canaanite Column. With Wilfred H. van Soldt. Israel Exploration Journal 49: 184 92. Reprinted in Ashkelon 1: Introduction and Overview, edited by L. E. Stager, J. D. Schloen, and D. M. Master, pp. 327 32. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. 2000 Old South Arabian Inscriptions in the Harvard Semitic Museum. In The Archaeology of Jordan and Beyond: Essays in Honor of James A. Sauer, edited by L. E. Stager, J. A. Greene, and M. D. Coogan, pp. 196 206. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Key to A Grammar of Akkadian, second, revised printing. Harvard Semitic Studies 46. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. A Grammar of Akkadian. Third, revised printing. Harvard Semitic Studies 45. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Proto-Semitic Language and Culture. In The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, pp. 2056 59. Fourth edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Appendix II: Semitic Roots. Ibid., 2062 68. A šà bala-a Tablet. With Tonia M. Sharlach. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 52: 123 25. 2001 Review of G. Beckman, Texts from the Vicinity of Emar in the Collection of Jonathan Rosen. Orientalia 70: 133 36. Review of Robert Hetzron, ed., The Semitic Languages. Journal of the American Oriental Society 121: 148 49. Historiography in the Cuneiform World: Proceedings of the XLVe Rencontre Assyriologique International, co-editor with Tzvi Abusch, Paul-Alain Beaulieu, Peter Machinist, and Piotr Steinkeller. Bethseda: CDL Press. Preface, in Chulhyun Bae, The Targum of Genesis. Seoul: Hannim. 2002 izuzzum and itūlum. In Riches Hidden in Secret Places: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Memory of Thorkild Jacobson, edited by Tzvi Abush, pp. 161 85. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Bibliography of Thorkild Jacobson. With Tzvi Abush. In Riches Hidden in Secret Places: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Memory of Thorkild Jacobsen, edited by Tzvi Abush, pp. ix xvii. Introduction. In Beyond Babel: A Handbook for Biblical Hebrew and Related Languages, edited by J. Kaltner and S. L. McKenzie, pp. 1 18. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Comparative Semitic Linguistics. In Semitic Linguistics: The State of the Art at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century, edited by Shlomo Izre el, pp. 119 50. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. The Hebrew and Aramaic Languages. With Jo Ann Hackett. In The Biblical World, edited by J. Barton, vol. 2, pp. 3 24. London: Routledge. Review of T. Muraoka and B. Porten, Grammar of Imperial Aramaic. Journal of the American Oriental Society 122: 604 07. Review of Mireille Hadas-Lebel, Histoire de la langue Hébraïque: des origines à l époque de la Mishna. 4th ed. Journal of the American Oriental Society 122: 651 52. 2003 Leaves from an Epigraphist s Notebook. By Frank M. Cross; co-editor with Jo Ann Hackett. Harvard Semitic Studies 51. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Amarna Studies. By W. L. Moran; co-editor with Shlomo Izre el. Harvard Semitic Studies 54. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Revision of Robert Hetzron, Semitic Languages. In Oxford International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, edited by W. J. Frawley, vol. 4, pp. 29 33. Second edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Akkadian ḫ and West Semitic *ḥ. In Studia Semitica, edited by L. Kogan, pp. 102 19. Moscow: Russian State University for the Humanities. The Alphabet on a Late Babylonian Cuneiform School Tablet. With Frank M. Cross. Orientalia 72: 223 28. Review of Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet, ed., Mosaïque de langues, mosaïque culturelle: le bilinguisme dans le Proche-Orient ancien. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 62: 294 98.
xvi Publications of John Huehnergard 2004 Afro-Asiatic. In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World s Ancient Languages, edited by R. D. Woodard, pp. 138 59. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Akkadian and Eblaite. With Christopher Woods. In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World s Ancient Languages, edited by R. D. Woodard, pp. 218 87. translation of Ancient South Arabian. By N. Nebes and P. Stein. In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World s Ancient Languages, edited by R. D. Woodard, pp. 454 87. Hammurabi. In Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History, edited by W. H. McNeill, vol. 3, pp. 882 84. Great Barrington: Berkshire. YOS 2/AbB 9 no. 40, 20 21: Distributive Possession in an OB Letter. N.A.B.U. 4/87: 88. 2005 A Grammar of Akkadian. Second edition. Harvard Semitic Studies 45. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Key to A Grammar of Akkadian. Second edition. Harvard Semitic Studies 46. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Features of Central Semitic. In Biblical and Oriental Essays in Memory of William L. Moran, edited by A. Gianto, pp. 155 203. Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico. William L. Moran. With Tzvi Abusch. Archiv für Orientforschung 50: 511 12. Reflexes of *qatl Forms in Gəʿəz. In Semitic Studies in Honour of Edward Ullendorff, edited by G. Khan, pp. 26 36. Leiden: Brill. Johann Heinrich Hottinger. In Elementale Quadrilingue, edited by J. F. Coakley, pp. 1 4. Oxford: Jericho Press. 2006 On the Etymology of the Hebrew Relative šε-. In Biblical Hebrew in Its Northwest Semitic Setting: Typological and Historical Perspectives, edited by S. E. Fassberg and A. Hurvitz, pp. 103 25. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Proto-Semitic and Proto-Akkadian. In The Akkadian Language in Its Semitic Context: Studies in the Akkadian of the Third and Second Millennium B.C., edited by G. Deutscher and N. J. C. Kouwenberg, pp. 1 18. Leiden: NINO. Hebrew Verbs I-w/y and a Proto-Semitic Sound Rule. In Memoriae Igor M. Diakonoff (Babel und Bibel 2), edited by L. Kogan, N. Koslova, S. Loesov, S. Tishchenko, pp. 459 74. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Biodiversity Corner: Swamp Milkweed Leaf Beetle. In Carlisle (MA) Mosquito (July 21, 2006): 14. Henry David Thoreau: Speaking for Nature. With Richard K. Walton. dvd. Concord: Three Rivers Productions. 2007 qātîl and qətîl Nouns in Biblical Hebrew. In Sha c arei Lashon: Studies in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Jewish Languages Presented to Moshe Bar-Asher, edited by A. Maman, S. E. Fassberg, and Y. Breuer, vol. 1, pp. *3 *45. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute. Northwest Semitic Languages. With Rebecca Hasselbach. In Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, edited by K. Versteegh, vol. 3, pp. 408 22. Leiden: Brill. Some Aspects of the Cleft in Semitic Languages. With Naʿama Pat-El. In Studies in Semitic and General Linguistics in Honor of Gideon Goldenberg, edited by T. Bar and E. Cohen, pp. 325 42. Münster: Ugarit. Bible-Translations: Ancient Translations: Ethiopic. In Encyclopedia Judaica, edited by F. Skolnik, vol. 3, pp. 601 02. Second edition. Jerusalem: Macmillan. Michael Patrick O Connor. With Jo Ann Hackett. SBL Forum (June 27, 2007): http://sbl-site.org/article.aspx?articleid=693 Comments on Yushu Gong, Graph-typology of Ancient Chinese and Sumerian Writing Systems A Comparative Perspective. In Oriental Studies (Peking): Special Issue: Collection of Papers on Ancient Civilizations of Western Asia, Asia Minor and North Africa, pp. 109 15. 2008 Ugaritic Vocabulary in Syllabic Transcription. Revised edition. Harvard Semitic Studies 32. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Additions and Corrections to Ugaritic Vocabulary in Syllabic Transcription, published online: https://www.eisenbrauns.com/ecom/_2ia0ls3h8.htm http://utexas.academia.edu/johnhuehnergard/papers/170732/2008_ugaritic_vocabulary_in_syllabic_ Transcription_Additions_and_Corrections Qiṭṭa: Arabic Cats. In Classical Arabic Humanities in Their Own Terms: Festschrift for Wolfhart Heinrichs on His 65th Birthday Presented by His Students and Colleagues, edited by B. Gruendler, pp. 407 18. Leiden: Brill.
Publications of John Huehnergard xvii Languages of the Ancient Near East. In The New Interpreter s Dictionary of the Bible, edited by K. D. Sakenfeld, vol. 3, pp. 576 80. Nashville: Abingdon. On Revising and Updating BDB. With Jo Ann Hackett. In Foundations for Syriac Lexicography III: Colloquia of the International Syriac Language Project, edited by J. Dyk and W. T. van Peursen, pp. 227 34. Piscataway: Gorgias. A Grammar of Akkadian. Second edition, second, revised printing. Harvard Semitic Studies 45. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Edwina Maria (Wyn) Wright. In SBL Forum (January 10, 2008): http://www.sbl-site.org/publications/article.aspx?articleid=745 Afro-Asiatic. In The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia, edited by R. D. Woodard, pp. 225 46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Akkadian and Eblaite. With Christopher Woods. In The Ancient Languages of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Aksum, edited by R. D. Woodard, pp. 83 152. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. translation of Ancient South Arabian. By N. Nebes and P. Stein. In The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia, edited by R. D. Woodard, pp. 145 78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2009 A Proper View of Arabic, Semitic, and More: A Response to George Mendenhall. With Gary A. Rendsburg and Aaron D. Rubin. Journal of the American Oriental Society 128: 533 41. Silver from the Souk: Semitic Loanwords in English. In The Bible and Our World: Ancient Lessons for Today. dvd. Washington, D.C.: Biblical Archaeological Society. Key to A Grammar of Akkadian. Second edition, second, revised printing. Harvard Semitic Studies 46. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. 2010 Hammurabi. In Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History, edited by William H. McNeill, vol. 3, pp. 1185 86. Second edition. Great Barrington: Berkshire. Reader, exercises and texts. In A Basic Introduction to Biblical Hebrew, by Jo Ann Hackett. Peabody: Hendrickson. 2011 A Grammar of Akkadian. Third edition. Harvard Semitic Studies 45. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Proto-Semitic Language and Culture. In The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, pp. 2066 69. Fifth edition. Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Guide to Appendix II. Ibid., pp. 2070 71. Appendix II: Semitic Roots. Ibid., pp. 2072 78. Phyla and Waves: Models of Classification. With Aaron D. Rubin. In Semitic Languages: An Inter national Handbook, edited by Stefan Weninger in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, and Janet Watson, pp. 259 78. Hand bücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. Commentary: Don t Close Book on Humanities. With Jo Ann Hackett. In Austin American-Statesman, Sunday, May 15. Section D, pages 1, 8. Online: Two Texas Professors on Why Academic Research Matters : http://www.statesman.com/opinion/insight/two-texas-professors-on-why-academic-researchmatters-1475412.html. Also in Houston Chronicle, Monday, May 16. Review of Akten des 7. internationalen Semitohamitistenkongresses, Berlin 2004, edited by Rainer Voigt. Journal of the American Oriental Society 131: 709. 2012 Third Person Possessive Suffixes as Definite Articles in Semitic. With Naʿama Pat-El. Journal of Historical Linguistics 2(1): 25 51. In Press An Introduction to Ugaritic. Peabody: Hendrickson. The Etymology of Hebrew and Aramaic ykl to be able. With Saul M. Olyan. Journal of Semitic Studies. Canaanite Shift. In Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, edited by G. Khan. Leiden: Brill. Hebrew Loanwords in English. Ibid. Philippi s Law. Ibid. Relative Particle (Morphology and Historical Background). Ibid. Segholates (Historical Background). Ibid. Hebrew as a Semitic Language. Ibid. The Biblical Prohibition against Tattooing. With Harold Liebowitz. Vetus Testamentum.
A Brief Note on the Festschrift Illustrations During 1983 I met John Huehnergard and Jo Ann Hackett when I had an exhibition of paintings in Los Angeles at Occidental College; Jo Ann was teaching there, John was teaching at Columbia, and I was living in Boston. We kept in touch, and eventually all of us ended up in Boston-Cambridge. Ever since, despite later geographical changes, we have remained close. Art has always been a common denominator for us, so I feel especially honored to be included as illustrator in this important scholarly work. I am neither a scholar of Near Eastern languages and cultures, nor any scholar at all. Rather, I am a visual artist who also likes language. Through the illustrations I hope to somehow portray dimensions of John Huehnergard that might not otherwise come across in the articles, namely, his vast interests in the wider humanities and natural sciences, and his fine sense of humor. Initially, my grand idea was to come up with a series of small, witty, and fresh cuneiform signs, a leitmotif similar to the graphic spots in the New Yorker. But given my grand limitations with the language, I found it excessively difficult to be witty in Neo-Assyrian. In any case, the inevitable flaws in these illustrations might provide their own comic relief, and if they bring a smile to a few faces, then perhaps I ve succeeded. And if cuneiform, specifically, and language in general can be looked at in a slightly different way as a result of these drawings, then that is even better. At the very least, the illustrations are designed to provide additional visual flow and rhythm to the book, whether or not one can read cuneiform. As an outsider to the field of Semitic languages, I have relied on Neo-Assyrian signs here rather than an earlier form of cuneiform or other later written language simply because, for me, they were the easiest to make, and with them my connection with John is most clear. Also, as an outsider, I thought my best recourse was to return to some original cuneiform, which I found in abundance at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. Secondarily, I purchased a battered edition of René Labat s Manuel d épigraphie Akkadienne (1959) and a second edition of Huehnergard s A Grammar of Akkadian (2005). Kathryn Slansky and Jo Ann Hackett spurred me on with their initial enthusiasm and encouragement, and Slansky along with Eckart Frahm took a look at the final drawings. The insightful article by Benjamin Studevent-Hickmann The Ninety-degree Rotation of the Cuneiform Script (2007) helped me with my new personal interest in the curious transformation of the signs over time, from vertical to horizontal. Parts of Rebecca Hasselbach s Sargonic Akkadian (2005) served as overview for a time period I found most interesting in the history of writing. Regarding technical matters, there was much trial and error. In the end, I avoided Photoshop in hopes of more closely simulating the physicality of a scribe writing cuneiform, to catch some tactile sense of the actual handwork. I fashioned homemade tools carved out of plastic cork and used the tools as ink stamps to arrive at a stylized, standard typography. Then, manually, I drew into the images further with pen and ink for graphic uniformity. I used a small mirror to decide on the bilateral compositions. Among the many cuneiform artifacts at the Pergamon Museum, my favorites are perhaps the stamps and cylinder seals because they announce a change in the writing technology. With them, images and signs can be reproduced countless times, as small precursors of movable type and the printing press. The scribe s time is potentially freed up, economically and manually, and there can be more aesthetic focus on other aspects of the communication. When cuneiform becomes added to representational images, the long cycles of repeating marks and bands created by those marvelous tools, the cylinder seals, can begin to provide an almost cinematic, seamless view into the culture. On the stamps and cylinder seals, the scribes carve the cuneiform signs in reverse to create a legible sign when it is stamped or rolled out as a print on clay. That is, the scribe is making a legible sign from its mirror image. Or, conversely, a mirror image of the sign occurs in the print when the correct version of the sign is carved into the printing implement. In either case, there is a close connection between the correct sign and the backwards sign. To an artist who likes language, this is intriguing. I decided to use bilateral shapes in the illustrations because I have been exploring bilateral shapes visually and conceptually in my paintings for many years. By using those shapes in the context of cuneiform, I tried, among other things, to put myself inside the mind of a scribe whose goal is to create the sign in reverse on a stamp or cylxviii
A Brief Note on the Festschrift Illustrations xix inder seal. Interestingly, for many of the less complex cuneiform signs I have used in this Festschrift, they are the same in their reversed mirror image as they are in their correct form. A jump in technology, such as the cylinder-printing rollers for making seals, can often lead to a change in accessibility to a language, as well as an aesthetic and mental jump in how one sees and how one understands what one sees. Did this change in technology contribute to a ninety-degree change in orientation of the signs? If the cylinders were also worn as beads on a necklace, or stored on sticks and mounted horizontally, thus perhaps familiarizing the viewer with seeing them horizontally rather than vertically, could this have also hastened the change in orientation? Did writing the signs backwards have an effect on how a scribe could see and think? A contemporary artist can only speculate. In some cases the stylized signs for each chapter of the Festschrift relate to the specific article. I also wanted to include signs for flora and fauna of the geographic region, so I have done that as often as possible. (For example, ettûtu, for spider, manages both connections preceding Richard Walton s article.) And then sometimes I include a sign simply because I find it beautiful and direct, and a good visual fit for the article, regardless of the sign s meaning. My apologies to anyone who tries to find any other connection between those signs and the subsequent articles. In conclusion, ever since my daughter Dorian was a child, John Huehnergard and Jo Ann Hackett have been her great and kind mentors. Eight years ago, Dorian named her only son John, in honor of John Huehnergard. My young grandson John has a lot to live up to. Any scholarly tribute to John Huehnergard must simultaneously include a tribute to Jo Ann Hackett for the long and deep collaboration between those two souls, without which John s work might have faltered. I am pleased to be part of this Festschrift tribute, and to have also learned a great deal in the process. May we all continue to solve language mysteries. X Bonnie Woods Berlin, 2012 ************ Biography of X Bonnie Woods X Bonnie Woods is an artist and designer based in Boston and Berlin. She is intrigued by the connections between image and language and has also worked in maps and in Braille. In addition to having exhibited her paintings and photos widely in the United States and Europe, she worked as a documentary photographer at Ground Zero during September October 2001, and in post-katrina New Orleans. Woods would like to thank Kathryn Slanski for her help and encouragement in this project, although Doctor Slanski is not to be held responsible for artistic license taken by Woods, who has used Neo-Assyrian cuneiform as a departure point for these illustrations.