Ugaritic

Ugaritic (/ˌ(j)uːɡəˈrɪtɪk/ (Y)OOG-ə-RIT-ik) 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. The script is described as “a special alphabetic Cuneiform,” reflecting an idiom related to Canaanite and Hebrew languages.

Like Hebrew the short script of Ugarit has twenty-two characters: nearly identical to Hebrew in terms of their phonetic values (what they sound like) if not in terms of the visual elements or media of their inscription. Early samples of Hebrew are scratched on stone or potsherds whereas Ugaritic is punched on clay, like cuneiform.

A scholar of the period hailed Ugaritic as "the greatest literary discovery from antiquity since the deciphering of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform.”