Aštart — the one true spelling, and the forms that fail it

The internet spells Aštart more ways than one, and only one of them is the name the sources wrote. This is the register's ruling — canonical, fallback, contested, and false, each in its proper place.

At a Glance

• Canonical form: Aštart
• Original script: 𐤏𐤔𐤕𐤓𐤕
• Pantheon: Phoenician
• Convention: the tradition’s own scholarly transliteration standard
• False forms on record: 0
• Contested forms: 2
• Series: The Canonical Register, No. 40 of 287

The Canonical Form

The attested form is 𐤏𐤔𐤕𐤓𐤕, from the tradition's own record. The canonical transliteration is Aštart.

No diacritics are required here: the canonical form is the exactness of the spelling itself, the form the tradition’s convention demands.

Where the Flattened Form Stands

The plain form astart is not false — it is a fallback, and the register is exact about what that means. In systems that cannot carry diacritics (legacy databases, older tooling, parts of the address-bar pipeline) the flattened form is the accepted vehicle, and the rulebook names it explicitly as the final rung of the fallback hierarchy: full restoration first, circumflex where attested, macron-only by the academic standard, an attested variant, and only then plain ASCII.

What the fallback status forbids is promotion: astart may carry the name where marks are impossible, but it may not represent the name where marks are possible. A fallback is a vehicle, never the primary.

The Register of False Forms

No circulating form of this name currently qualifies as false under the register's standard — a rare standing. The spelling is short, sturdy, and rarely mangled.

The Contested Forms

Not every non-canonical form is false. These forms carry real scholarly support — they are recorded in the lexicon as variants, with their sources, and the register presents them honestly rather than pretending unanimity:

• Ashtart — Hebraic/Biblical form. Support: KAI, Coogan, CIS.
• Astarte — Greek-influenced form (Astarte). Support: KAI, Coogan, Smith.

The canonical form stands above the contested ones here by weight of evidence, not by decree. If the scholarship shifts, the register shifts with it — that is what "canonical" means when it is honest.

The Convention's Own History

Every tradition in this register has its own scholarly transliteration standard, built by its own specialists over decades or centuries, and the register follows each on its own terms: the tradition’s own standard. The principle that unifies them is the one the whole project stands on: a name is evidence, and evidence is not negotiable — not for keyboards, not for convenience, not for anyone.

What the Address Bar Allows

IDNA 2008 permits the letters these restorations use — macrons, acutes, underdots, thorn, ogonek, the lot — and the DNS carries them as punycode (`xn--` labels). Two honest constraints remain. First, registrar inventory: the protocol permits a character; the registrar's stock decides whether the exact domain can be bought today. Second, combined marks: forms like Apṓllōn (acute stacked on a macron) are philologically ideal yet effectively untypeable on phones and unsupported across much of the registration system.

That is why the rulebook keeps a fallback hierarchy — full restoration first, then the circumflex when the source carries one, then the macron-only academic standard, then an attested variant, and only as a last resort the plain ASCII form. Every step down the ladder is still defensible; nothing on the ladder is a wrong mark. A fallback is a choice among attested forms. A false form is not on the ladder at all.

Where the Name Stood First

Ugaritic KTU 1.92 casts her as a huntress in alphabetic cuneiform, while Phoenician inscriptions from Sidon, Tyre, Kition, and the Carthage tophet invoke her as a civic and funerary goddess. In Egypt, New Kingdom reliefs and statuettes from Tanis, Memphis, and Pi-Ramesses present her as a chariot warrior and horse goddess. The Pyrgi gold tablets record a joint dedication to Uni/Aštart, and the Karatepe bilingual names her alongside Baʿal. The temple on the web is the newest of these addresses — the first one that fits in a pocket.

The Verdict

The register rules for Aštart, and the ruling is checkable: every mark sourced, every violation stated, every borderline form given its honest standing. astart is the sanctioned fallback for systems without marks — a vehicle, never the scholarly primary. Anything else in circulation has its origin and its failure recorded above. That is the whole of the law on this name — and the temple at /sites/astart/ enforces it.

The docket for this ruling: no false forms on the docket; 2 contested forms recorded with their support; the attestation rests on 6 cited sources — KTU (Ugaritic texts), CIS, KAI.

The Register Continues

This is one of 287 entries in the Canonical Register — the authoritative reference for every flagship temple. The temple's founding dispatch tells the name's story; its Restoration File details the marks; its Resonance File reads the archetype into the industries. The blog index holds the whole archive, and the Rulebook states the convention this register enforces.

Continue the register — previous entry: Asklēpiós (read it) · next entry: Athēnâ (read it).

The Canonical Register is written from the same canonical record as the lexicon itself. If a false form is missing from this page, it is because the evidence does not support calling it false — or because we have not seen it yet. Show us, with a citation, and the register will answer.