IRREANTUM
| Lehite GN | Sea, most likely off the Arabian coast, meaning “many waters” (1 Nephi 17:5) |
IRREANTUM is composed of four elements: a prosthetic aleph, the root rwy, the nominalizing affix -n, and the root tmm, and probably means “abundant watering of completeness.” This meaning is an acceptable match with the translation given in 1 Nephi 17:5, “many waters.”1
The root rwy is common to the West Semitic languages and has the general meaning “thorough watering, to water plentifully.”2 That IRREANTUM has a doubled /r/ does not present any problems. None of the West Semitic languages originally indicated in the orthography the doubling of consonants. (Akkadian, the East Semitic language group, did indicate on occasion the doubling of a consonant.) Not until more than a thousand years after the time of Lehi were diacritical marks introduced into written Hebrew and Arabic that indicated the doubling of a consonant. However, the pronunciation of the doubled consonants in Lehi’s day is certain, because the doubling is phonemic.
The /i/ that precedes the doubled /r/ is also easily explained as either a prosthetic aleph added to the name to break up a consonant cluster,3 or as the aleph of the Arabic definite article ʾil. When the article is pronounced together with the noun that follows it, the /l/ assimilates to the following consonant, doubling it.4 Supporting this interpretation of the first two elements of IRREANTUM is the existence of a pre-Islamic city/village name ʾrwy, 5 exactly what might be expected from the combination of a prosthetic aleph or an assimilated definite article and the root rwy. The first part of IRREANTUM would then be ’rrȇ-<*’rrey-<*rwey-.
The element -n is a common affix (a particle appended to a word) used in all the Semitic languages, including ancient South Semitic. It occurs Aespecially in abstracts,@6 meaning abstract nouns, similar to the use of the affix ABship@ in the English word Akingship.@ An abstraction from Awatering@ seems to fit the requirement here that IRREANTUM have something to do with Awater.@7
The final element, tmm, could well be the common West Semitic root meaning “complete, whole; innocent, perfect; etc. Both the noun form and the infinitive form in Hebrew are tōm, which reverts to its earliest form, tūm, when it is not stressed. Together with the first part of IRREANTUM, the name would mean, somewhat literally, “abundant watering of completeness,” That Irrean and tum are separate words would also explain why the /n/ does not assimilate to the following /t/, which always happens within a word of Hebrew origin, but not when the /n/ ends one word and the /t/ begins another.
It is possible that the Akkadian city name URUa-ri-ia-an-ta in north-west Syria (Michael .C. Astour, “The Partition of the Confederacy of Mukiš-Nuhašše-Nii by Šuppiluliuma,” Orientalia 38 [1969] 410) could be etymologically related to IRREANTUM. (PYH)
Several Egyptian etymologies have been proposed. Hugh W. Nibley has suggested as possible derivations r3-ʿntyw-m, and r3-n(n)-t3[]wm-dšr, names for the mouth of the Red Sea in both the Louvre and British Museum mss. In the first there is the dual of ʿnt, “finger, ten thousand,” of which the second is the philological equivalent of the Hebrew rb, rbb, “myriad, ten thousand,” the highest number in Hebrew for which there is a word (RFS, “Egyptianisms”).8
Hugh W. Nibley also points out that “one of the more common Egyptian names for the Red Sea was Iaru...[which] is not Egyptian...[and whose] meaning is unknown,” and that “antum” from iny-t and ʿnjt both describe large bodies of water (SC, 196). Also note that “many waters” is a typical Egyptian designation, e.g., Fayyum (SC, 195.).
Bibliography Paul Y. Hoskisson, with Brian Hauglid and John Gee, “Irreantum,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 11,1 (2002): 90-93.
Cf. Book of Mormon ANTUM, et al., MORIANTUM, CORIANTUM
Notice that not all Semitic languages regularly assimilate the “n”. E.g., RS 8.145:26 ta-na-an-din, “she shall give.”
