There is perhaps no social currency as fascinating as the use of rare phrases in one’s daily conduct. From the Latin words employed by many practitioners and scholars of law, to casually dropping a swaggering slang term that was used in the latest pop song – an extensive vocabulary can not only provide you with authority or popularity, but also with the subject of a blog during a continent-wide heat wave!¹ And in this blog, I want to introduce you to a captivating pendant from antiquity, one ʾIlîmilku who lived in the ancient Levantine city of Ugarit, and how he used loanwords from the ancient Egyptian language to illustrate his breadth of knowledge. During this introduction of ʾIlîmilku, we also get a sense of how prestigious and influential ancient Egyptian culture already was in the ancient world. And by rights, it should become a hallmark of both learning and coolness – the proverbial kind, that is – once again to use ancient Egyptian in conversation and writing.

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Egyptian Influence in the Ancient Levant

Disregarding rounding errors, we all find ancient Egypt fascinating.² And we are not alone therein, there are many historical examples of people, famous as well as ordinary, who lost themselves in what was known about the Land of the Nile during antiquity.³ In the Levant, what we would now call the Eastern Mediterranean seaboard, there was a strong Egyptian cultural influence during the late Bronze Age. (Though we may wonder if and to what extent this influence went beyond the local elites.⁴) We see the prestige and enchantment emanating from the Pharaonic realm in the far south in local objects – from utensils to furniture – and of course intellectual endeavors.⁵ One of the reasons for this was the Egyptian political presence in the region.⁶ But this interest went above and beyond that, and continued in periods when Egypt’s power was weaker. And it was, at least in part, reciprocated. The ancient Egyptians imported material goods, craft knowledge, and religious beliefs from the Levant.⁷ There was a vibrant exchange of human ingenuity, creativity, and gumption.

It speaks to reason that this enthusiastic exchange also extended to linguistics. When it comes to the Levantine city of Ugarit, we do observe some Egyptian influence in certain formulaic expressions and other linguistic aspects of the local language.⁸ Many proposed Egyptian loanwords in Ugaritic pertained, as one might expect, to the parts of material and intellectual culture wherein some sway of the Land of the Nile was most common.⁹ Though many of the proposed loanwords from ancient Egyptian into the Ugaritic language are still debated.¹⁰ Two of the most likely candidates are in fact only attested in the works of one scribe. And that scribe, as you probably already guessed, is the subject of this blog, a inhabitant of Ugarit named ʾIlîmilku.

ʾIlîmilku and Their Extensive Knowledge

Pendantry in ancient texts, including exotically coded loanwords, is not an extraordinary phenomenon – we can observe such ostentatious displays of knowledge throughout the ancient world. An important nuance here is that we should distinguish between loanwords that are so thoroughly adopted that they have become indelible parts of a language, and those loanwords that are recognized as being of foreign origin. But introducing two entirely new words into a language, as ʾIlîmilku appears to have done with his works – specifically freakin’ poetry! – in the thirteenth century BCE as a writer in Ugarit who tried to enrich the eponymous language, is still quite a feat!

ʾIlîmilku is a well-known name for anybody who ever pursued even a passing curiosity towards the ancient language that we today call Ugaritic.¹¹ Because a number of clay tablets that were signed by him have been discovered and published for a modern audience.¹² As the cuneiform-based alphabet that was used for Ugaritic did not spell-out all vowels and because some vowels tended to be homogenized in Ugaritic names, there is still debate about how we should read his name and thus what it meant.¹³ But everyone agrees that it did have something to do with the underworld deity Milku. And such scholarly discussions on language have also popped up around his literary work.

If our reconstruction of one of the writer’s notes with which ʾIlîmilku signed some works, called a colophon, is correct, than it offers an insight into the man’s inspired approach to writing. Because in this colophon, ʾIlîmilku claims he owns no debt to anyone for the preceding text. This statement has been interpreted as ʾIlîmilku being an original poet, who perhaps even performed.¹⁴ And the fact that we do not have definitive examples of the older texts on which this learned individual could have based his work, including the poems that are relevant to us, as well as his ommission of the common claim that the work in question was authoritative precisely because it was based on an older text – as was mostly the norm in those times – makes this claim all the more believable.¹⁵ The claim in this colophon does not imply, however, that ʾIlîmilku was an autodidact. We even know his teacher by name, one ʾAttēnu.¹⁶ Like ʾIlîmilku, ʾAttēnu appeared to have been an enviably learned person who could give anyone, regardless of one’s era, a dose of imposter syndrome.

Having established ʾIlîmilku penchant for originality, it does not have to surprise us that his choice in loanwords is very eclectic. In fact, aside from the poems in which ʾIlîmilku used the precative particle m‘ and the exclamation particle mk, both of which are assumed to have Egyptian origins, we don’t find these loanwords in our surviving Ugaritic sources at all!¹⁷ If we want to guess at the man’s motives, I think you can do worse than Marjo Korpel who remarked that using such loanwords “might be an example of ʾIlîmilku’s propensity to use foreign words, as many a learned person does to show off a little.”¹⁸ And Egypt is not the only source of ʾIlîmilku’s creativity, as we also find loanwords from other languages in his works.¹⁹ But in the context of our discussion of Egypt’s cultural influence in the region and the unique nature of these loanwords, ʾIlîmilku’s attention to the language of the Land of the Nile is perhaps the most interesting for us today. And, as with many linguistic and literary inventions, our historical record – or literary record tout court – would be poorer without such bold approaches to the art of composing texts, be it ancient or otherwise!

Conclusion: Learning Takes Precedence

Writing this blog on the use of rare words in ancient Ugarit to impress oneself, one’s peers, and/or one’s audience was an interesting exercise. Because I myself try to avoid words that might be unknown to any of my readers. It is unavoidable, of course, and it can also be a good thing to offer people new words with which they can maybe even structure their own thoughts more granular than they could before. Personally, I always like it when I can add a new addition to my vocabulary and thinking. When I recently read Alice Sola Kim’s short story Successor, Usurper, Replacement from 2016, I became acquainted with the word ‘blanched’ and I cannot wait to use that term in a conversation – spoken, written, or otherwise.²⁰

But as a general rule, a blog full of unknown words would, I think, discourage and frustrate even the the most curious of readers. Despite how impressive ʾIlîmilku and his learning are, it is perhaps a good practice to deal out the lexical nuggets in acceptable doses. Because it may be important and fun to enrich one’s vocabulary, but language should never become a barrier to learning itself.

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References

1. Heikki E.S. Mattila, Comparative Legal Linguistics: Language of Law, Latin and Modern Lingua Francas (London: Routledege, 2013), chapter 3; Alice Damirjian, “The Social Significance of Slang”, Mind & Language 2025, 40 (2), p. 138-156.
2. For Europe, where I am from, see: Helen Whitehouse, “Egypt in European Thought”, in: Jack M. Sasson (ed.), Civilizations of the Ancient Near East (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1995), p. 15-31.
3. Robert Hawley, “Ugaritic”, in: Rebecca Hasselbach-Andee (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2020), p. 262.
4. Mario Liverani, The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy, Translated by Soraia Tabatabai (New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2014), p. 341; Marc van de Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000 – 323 BC (Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2024), p. 167.
5. Liverani, The Ancient Near East, p. 342-344.
6. Marc van de Mieroop, A History of Ancient Egypt (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), p. 223; Van de Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000 – 323 BC, p. 141-143.
7. Van de Mieroop, A History of Ancient Egypt, p. 167-168.
8. Bérénice Lagarce, “L’Image du Pouvoir Égyptien dans les Documents d’Ougarit”, in: Pierre Bordreuil, Françoise Ernst-Pradal, Maria G. Masetti-Rouault, Hedwige Rouillard-Bonraisin & Michel Zink (eds), Les Écritures Mises au Jour sur le Site Antique d’Ougarit (Syrie) et leur Déchiffrement: 1930-2010 (Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 2013), p. 269-296.
9. Hawley, “Ugaritic”, p. 262.
10. Wilfred G.E. Watson, Lexical Studies in Ugaritic (Barcelona: AUSA, 2007), p. 135-145.
11. Carole Roche-Hawley & Robert Hawley, “An Essay on Scribal Families, Tradition, and Innovation in Thirteenth-Century Ugarit”, in: Billie J. Collins & Piotr Michalowski (eds.), Beyond Hatti: A Tribute to Gary Beckman (Atlanta: Lockwood Press, 2013), p. 241-264.
12. Pierre Bordreuil & Dennis Pardee. A Manual of Ugaritic (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009), p. 6.
13. Robert Hawley, Dennis Pardee & Carole Roche-Hawley, “The Scribal Culture of Ugarit”, Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History 2015, 2 (2), p. 247, note 43.
14. Dennis Pardee, “L’Autorité au 13^e Siècle av. J.-C.? ʾIlîmilkou d’Ougarit: Scribe/Auteur?”, in: Maria Goréa & Michel Tardieu (ed.), Autorité des Auteurs Antiques: Entre Anonym2at, Masque et Authenticité (Turhout: Brepols, 2014), p. 35-57; Roche-Hawley & Hawley, “An Essay on Scribal Families, Tradition, and Innovation in Thirteenth-Century Ugarit”, p. 262-263.
15. Hawley, Pardee & Roche-Hawley, “The Scribal Culture of Ugarit”, p. 250.
16. Wilfred H. van Soldt, “Babylonian Lexical, Religious and Literary Texts”, in: Manfred Dietrich & Oswald Loretz (eds.), Ugarit und seine Altorientalische Umwelt (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1995), p. 187-188.
17. Hawley, “Ugaritic”, p. 262; Marjo C.A. Korpel, “Exegesis in the Work of Ilimilku of Ugarit”, in: Johannes C. de Moor, Intertextuality in Ugarit and Israel (Leiden: Brill, 1998), p. 98, note 53; Wilfred G.E. Watson, “Non-Semitic Words in the Ugaritic Lexicon (2)”, Ugarit-Forschungen 1996, 28 (1), p. 707.
18. Korpel, “Exegesis in the Work of Ilimilku of Ugarit”, p. 98.
19. Wilfred G.E. Watson, “Non-Semitic Words in the Ugaritic Lexicon (1)”, Ugarit-Forschungen 1995, 27 (1), p. 533-558.
20. Alice Sola Kim, “Successor, Usurper, Replacement”, in: Charles Yu (ed.), The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy: 2017 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), p. 251-266.