Editing Urartian language (section)

==Phonology==

Hachikian (2010)<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Хачикян |first=Маргарит Левоновна |date=2010 |title=Урартский язык |journal=Языки мира: Древние реликтовые языки Передней Азии |pages=151–153}}</ref> gives the following consonants for Urartian inferred both from Urartian writing as well as loans into neighboring languages, mainly Armenian:
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
! colspan="2" |
![[Labial consonant|Labial]]
![[Dental consonant|Dental]] / [[Alveolar consonant|Alveolar]] 
![[Dorsal consonant|Dorsal]] <small>([[Velar consonant|Velar]] and [[Palatal consonant|palatal]])</small>
|-
! colspan="2" |[[Nasal stop|Nasals]]
|{{IPAlink|m}} ⟨m⟩
|{{IPAlink|n}} ⟨n⟩
|
|-
! rowspan="3" |[[Stop consonant|Stops]]
!{{small|[[voiceless]]}}
|{{IPAlink|p|pʰ}} ⟨p⟩
|{{IPAlink|t|tʰ}} ⟨t⟩
|{{IPAlink|k|kʰ}} ⟨k⟩
|-
!{{small|[[voice (phonetics)|voiced]]}}
|{{IPAlink|b}} ⟨b⟩
|{{IPAlink|d}} ⟨d⟩
|{{IPAlink|ɡ}} ⟨g⟩
|-
!<small>“[[Emphatic consonant|emphatic]]” [[ejective consonant|(ejective)]]</small>
|{{IPAlink|pʼ}} ⟨p⟩
|{{IPAlink|tʼ}} ⟨ṭ⟩
|{{IPAlink|kʼ}} ⟨q⟩
|-
! rowspan="3" |[[Affricate]]s
!{{small|[[voiceless]]}}
|
|{{IPAlink|t͡s|t͡sʰ}} ⟨s⟩
|
|-
!{{small|[[voice (phonetics)|voiced]]}}
|
|{{IPAlink|d͡z}} ⟨z⟩
|
|-
!<small>“[[Emphatic consonant|emphatic]]” [[ejective consonant|(ejective)]]</small>
|
|{{IPAlink|t͡sʼ}} ⟨ṣ⟩
|
|-
! rowspan="2" |[[Fricative consonant|Fricatives]]
!{{small|[[voiceless]]}}
|({{IPAlink|f}}) ⟨p⟩?
|{{IPAlink|s}} ⟨š⟩
|{{IPAlink|x}} ⟨ḫ⟩
|-
!{{small|[[voice (phonetics)|voiced]]}}
|{{IPAlink|v}} ‹b, u, ú›
|({{IPAlink|z}})
|{{IPAlink|ɣ}} ⟨ḫ⟩
|-
! rowspan="2" |[[Approximant consonant|Approximants]]
!<small>[[Central consonant|central]]</small>
|[[Voiced labial–velar approximant|w]] ‹u, ú›
|{{IPAlink|r}}~{{IPAlink|ɾ}} ⟨r⟩
|[[j]] ⟨g, i⟩
|-
!<small>[[Lateral consonant|lateral]]</small>
|
|{{IPAlink|l}}~{{IPAlink|ɫ}} ⟨l⟩
|
|}
The three-way laryngeal contrast for stops and affricates was faithfully represented in Urartian writing, except for the “emphatic” /pʼ/ which the Semitic-based cuneiform writing system did not have a distinct symbol for. Their values are confirmed by loans in Armenian. Urartian voiceless stops and affricates were loaned as voiceless aspirates in Armenian, while Urartian “emphatic” stops are found as unaspirated voiceless stops in Armenian. E.g., Urartian ''ul-ṭu'' ‘camel’ ↦ Armenian ուղտ ''ułt'', Urartian ''ṣu-(ú-)pa-'' ‘[[Sophene|Sophene (toponym)]]’ ↦ Armenian Ծոփ- ''Copʰ-''. Contrasting the last example with Urartian ''ṭu-uš-pa-'' ‘[[Tushpa|Tushpa (toponym)]]’ ↦ Armenian Տոսպ ''Tosp'', Hachikian (2010) reconstructs an “emphasis” distinction in the bilabial position.

The cuneiform signs usually transliterated with ‹s, z, ṣ› were not fricatives, but affricates, as again shown by loans in Armenian.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Greppin |first=John A. C. |date=2011 |title=Urartian Sibilants in Armenian |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/41553580.pdf |journal=Historische Sprachforschung |volume=124 |pages=292–296 |jstor=41553580 }}</ref> E.g., Urartian ''ṣa-ri'' ‘orchard’ ↦ Armenian ծառ ''caṙ'' ‘tree’, Urartian ''al-zi-'' ‘[[Arzanene|Arzanene (toponym)]]’ ↦ Armenian Աղձնի- ''Ałʒni-''. Urartian ‹š› was loaned into Armenian as /s/: Urartian ''ša-ni'' ‘kettle’ ↦ Armenian սան ''san'' ([[wiktionary:սան#Etymology 2 2|ultimately from Sumerian via Akkadian]]).

The precise phonetics of emphasis is not recoverable. It possibly may have been ejectivization or glottalization /pʼ, tʼ, t͡sʼ, kʼ/ as in Semitic languages of the time and the nearby endemic languages of the Caucasus, or just plain unaspirated (and unvoiced) {{IPA|/p⁼, t⁼, t͡s⁼, k⁼/}} as in Armenian, in either case, contrasting fully with the respective aspirated {{IPA|/pʰ, tʰ, t͡sʰ, kʰ/}} and voiced {{IPA|/b, d, d͡z, g/}} series. Near front vowels, /g/ was palatalized and probably merged with, or at least became perceptibly close to, /j/. A distinct /v/ is suggested by variant spellings alternating between {{angbr|ú}} and {{angbr|b}} and by the toponym rendered in Armenian as Վան ''Van'' ‘[[Van, Turkey|Van]]’ and written ''bi-a-i-ni-'' in Urartian.

Hachikian (2010) also suggests {{IPA|/f/}} and {{IPA|/z/}}. For a phonemic {{IPA|/ɣ/}} distinct from {{IPA|/x/}}, there is limited evidence from the Greek rendering of the toponym Κομμαγηνή ''Kommagēnḗ'' ‘[[Commagene]]’ for Urartian ''qu-ma-ḫa-''; thus, {{IPA|/x/}} and {{IPA|/ɣ/}} were not orthograpically distinguished.

=== Vowels ===
The script distinguishes the vowels ''a'', ''e'', ''i'' and ''u''. Hachikian believes that there was an /o/ as well, as reflected in loans such as the rendition of Urartian ''ṭu-uš-pa-'' ‘[[Tushpa|Tushpa (toponym)]]’ as Armenian Տոսպ ''Tosp'' and Greek Θοσπ- ''Thosp-''. There may have been phonemic vowel length, but it is not consistently expressed in the script. Word-finally, the distinction between ''e'' and ''i'' is not maintained, so many scholars transcribe the graphically vacillating vowel as a [[schwa]]: ''ə'', while some preserve a non-reduced vowel (usually opting for ''i''). The full form of the vowel appears when suffixes are added to the word and the vowel is no longer in the last syllable: ''Argištə'' "[[Argišti]]" - ''Argištešə'' "by Argišti ([[ergative case]])". This [[vowel reduction]] also suggests that stress was commonly on the next-to-the-last syllable.

In the [[morphonology]], various morpheme combinations trigger [[Syncope (phonetics)|syncope]]: *''ar-it-u-mə'' → ''artumə'', *''zaditumə'' → ''zatumə'', *''ebani-ne-lə'' → ''ebanelə'', *''turul(e)yə'' →'' tul(e)yə''.