A-RA-TU
earth (feminine noun—PS *ʾar(V)ṣ̂- "earth")
- Reading
- ʾarṣ̂atu
- Confidence
- Candidate
- Root
- *ʾar(V)ṣ̂- ‘earth’
- Kind
- Toponym
- Language
- Semitic
- Rank
- —
Compared forms
- Akkadianerṣetu(m) "earth, land, ground"—standard citation form erṣetum carries feminine mimation, supporting ʾarṣ̂atum as regular East-Semitic-style case marking
- Ugaritic𐎀𐎗𐎕ʾarṣʾarṣ "earth" (ṣ̂→ṣ merger)
- Hebrewאֶרֶץʾereṣʾereṣ (אֶרֶץ) "earth, land" (ṣ̂→ṣ merger)
- Arabicʾarḍ-ʾarḍ- "earth" (ṣ̂→ḍ, preserves lateral)
- Aramaicʾarʕ-ʾarʕ- "earth" (ṣ̂→ʕ fricativization)
- South Arabianʾrḍʾrḍ "earth" (ṣ̂→ḍ, preserves lateral)
Attestations1 cited
- ZA 7aA-RA-TU 4earth (offering category)
Commentary
ZA 7a, a Zakros allocation tablet: A-RA-TU 4, beside A-RE-TU-MI, which words or a number may have followed, ʾarṣ̂-ummī ‘Earth is my mother’. ʾarṣ̂atu ‘earth’, PS *ʾar(V)ṣ̂-, -TU the feminine -at(u); the emphatic lateral ṣ̂ is unwritten, as in A-RE-TU-MI. A-RA-TU keeps the a of the absolute state, and A-RE-TU-MI reduces it to e in the construct before -ummī: the noun and the theophoric name stand on one tablet. A-RA-TU-ME, a hapax heading on the roundel HT Wc 3024, is ʾarṣ̂atum with mimation, as Akkadian erṣetum. Mimation marks the nonbound singular in both genders in Proto-Semitic, *ṭāb-at-u-m beside *ṭāb-u-m (Huehnergard 2019, 59–60, Table 3.7), and in Amorite, a-še-ra-tum, ḫa-na-tum, ni-iḫ-ma-tam, where it is ‘common but apparently optional’ (George and Krebernik 2022, 131). Minoan writes it on three masculine singulars, RI-SU-MA, MA-RU-ME and JA-SA-SA-RA-ME, against more than 200 without, so at that rate the eight other feminine -at common nouns are expected bare.
On the 3D inscriptions
Not written on any of the 82 inscriptions modelled so far.