Digital Glossary of Nuzi Hurrian

forthcoming

After centuries of research, scholars have deciphered most ancient Mesopotamian languages, but a few are still not fully understood. One of these last frontiers is Hurrian. The biggest problem for researchers today is that the meaning of many words is still unknown. The texts from Nuzi (c. 15th-14th BC, modern Yorghan Tepe, in Iraq) are key for the decipherment of Hurrian. They were written in a context of diglossia: by people who spoke Hurrian but wrote in Akkadian, and, as is usual in such contexts, Nuzian scribes used Hurrian loanwords. Although the Nuzi corpus is the largest of its kind, a systematic study of Nuzi Hurrian has never been undertaken. DiGloss aims to make a significant contribution to the comprehension of the Hurrian lexicon and bring the knowledge of this language to the next level. To achieve this goal, all Hurrian words in Nuzi texts will be compiled in an online database. I will apply an interdisciplinary methodology that combines contextual and morphological analysis to (1) understand how the scribes adapted the cuneiform writing system to record Hurrian and (2) determine the meaning of specific lexical items. The project will be based at Paris 1 University and will be supervised by Prof. Brigitte Lion, a world-leading expert in the study of Nuzi. Her expertise and the multidisciplinary environment at the host institution provide the ideal context for the development of DiGloss. The project will produce indispensable tools for future research in Hurrian, thus boosting my academic career. Clarification of the Nuzi Hurrian lexicon will bring us closer to the complete decipherment of Hurrian, and will allow scholars to fully understand texts that are only partially comprehensible today. As written texts are the cornerstone of the study of ancient historical societies, the results of the project will have an impact on Ancient Middle Eastern studies at large, while also contributing to the preservation of linguistic and cultural heritage.