The Indo-European Elements in Hurrian

14 2. Phonology, Writing Systems, Texts
also an instance of Õ in the obscure word or syntagm [t z Õ r p n m]. The presence of */"/ seems
probable, but it must be noted that there is also the case of Šauška [t w t k], with no aleph.
Speiser (1941:19) dismisses the evidence of < d Te-eš-šu-ub-"a-ri> (VS VII 72.10) and of
Mit. IV 50, which he proposes to interpret as *[aje]. We will show below that this is most
probably *[ā"ī"ī]. The comparison of Arip-atal with Arip-¯uppi in Gelb (1944:114) is also a
powerful clue that a glottal stop prevents the connection between p and the next (")a.
As regards geminates, [nn] is attested in Ugaritic script for the plural article . The
graphic geminates and resulting from the assimilation of -r- and -l- with the singular
article -ni are most probably phonetic geminates. The case of the Absolutive plural may
not be a geminate but a voiceless fricative. As for , the case of suni and summi ‘hand’
suggests that summi is sun=mi with assimilation to the suffix -mi. This is most probably a
phonetic geminate. As noted above, graphic gemination is a device to indicate voicelessness, but
it is possible that, in some cases, morpheme boundaries resulted in phonetic geminates. Potential
examples are: (1) -ittu, -itta ‘P3 pl. + future’, which can be analyzed as *-id=ta, *-id=tu; (2) -tta
‘P1sg. + Abs.’, which can be analyzed as *-t=wa. Phonetic gemination appears only at
morpheme boundaries.
On this basis, we would propose the following phonological system for Hurrian:
Labial Dental Affricate Palatal Liquids Velar Glottal
Voiced /b/ /d/ /m/ /ź/ /l/ /ll/ /g/
Voiceless /p/ /t/ /ˆ/ /ś/ /k/ /"/
Voiced /z/ /r/ /rr/ /γ/
Voiceless /s/ /x/
Nasals /m/ /n/ /nn/
Glides /w/ /y/
A final remark on the consonants is the tendency of Hurrian “laryngeals” (/γ/, /x/ and /"/)
to mute out. The word ‘Egypt’ is attested in the Mitanni letter as Mit. II 69
and Mit. II 71, which suggests *[ma:sri"a"] with two different treatments
of the final glottal stop: vowel lengthening or gemination. The word šu¯uri ‘life’ is also attested
with writings like or *[suwri] with no .
Laroche assumes that Hurrian had the following vowels: /i/, /a/, /u/; he does not exclude
that /e/ and /o/ may have existed, but none of the writing systems used for Hurrian can provide
any support for the existence of /e/ and /o/. It is well-known that the cuneiform system is not far
from being hopelessly unable to denote this distinction, even where it may have existed. It can
be noted that tan ‘to do’ (< *dheH÷-) and taše ‘gift’ (< *doHú-) are both written with -a-.
This triangular system /i/, /a/, /u/ is typologically frequent. Apparently, as shown by the
Hebrew and Greek rendition of the word ¯urru¯e ‘Hurrian’, the phoneme */u/ in Hurrian must
have been rather open and sounded like *[o]. As regards the phoneme */a/, it seems to be fairly
anterior and close to *[æ/ε]. An instance of standing for is šarri ‘king’ and šerri, šerši