Cuneiform times of Parthian Empire (250 BC – AD 226). The last known cuneiform inscription, an astronomical text, was written in 75 AD. The complexity of the system prompted the development of a number of simplified versions of the script. Old Persian was written in a subset of simplified cuneiform characters known today as Old Persian cuneiform. It formed a semi-alphabetic syllabary, using far fewer wedge strokes than Assyrian used, together with a handful of logograms for frequently occurring words like "god" and "king". Ugaritic was written using the Ugaritic alphabet, a standard Semitic style alphabet (an "abjad") written using the
Ù (cuneiform) it is used especially as a segue in text, (example Amarna letters), when changing topics, or when inserting segue-pausing positions. In the Amarna letters, it is also commonly immediately followed by a preposition: "a-na", or "i-na", used as ""...And, to..."", or ""...And, in...""; also ""...But, for..."", etc. This usage with a preposition is also a better example of the segue usage. Of the three u's, by graphemic analysis (Buccellati, 1979), the commonness is as follows: Both "ù (cuneiform)" and ú are in the top 25 most used signs, but E (cuneiform) and "u (cuneiform)" are not; other vowels (or combination)