Number: 2425
Proto-Semitic: *ʔarḫ-
Meaning: cow, heifer'.
Akkadian: arḫu 'cow' OB on [CAD a2 263], [AHw. 67]. // Found in a relatively small number of OB economical texts (v. discussion in [Stol 175-6]). In later periods mostly in literary texts (often under the logogram ÁB). For the meaing of a. cf. the LL opposing arḫu TUR-tú ša lā tūlidu 'the small a. which did not calve' and arḫu GAL ša tūlidu 'the big a. which calved'.
Ugaritic: ʔarḫ 'vaca, novilla' [DLU 49]. // Only in mytho-poetical texts, in particular applied to goddesses (ʔilht ʔarḫt 'goddesses-cows' in KTU 1.4 VI 50, ʕnt ʔarḫ bʕl 'Anat, Baʕlu's cow' in 1.13 29).
Canaanite: Amm. ʔrḥ 'young cow' [HJ 107]. // On the ostracon Heshbon 1.5 (ʔrḥ bt 2 'a two-year-old cow', cf. [Jackson 93]).
Aramaic: Dem. ʔrḫ 'cow' [HJ 1253].
Arabic: ʔirḫ- 'jeune taureau', ʔirh̊at- 'génisse' [BK 1 24], [Fr. I 25], [LA III 4] (in the last two sources, also ʔarḫ-, ʔurḫiyy-). Cf. also ʔirāḫ- 'antilope' ........
Tigrai (Tigriñña): ʔarḥi 'giovenca, vacca che non abbia ancora figliato' [Bass. 493], ʔarḥo 'toro' [ibid.].
Soqotri: ʔarḥ 'génisse' [LS 74].
Notes: Cf. Cha. Eža Msq. äre, Cha. ärạ̈, Sel. ǝri, ire, Sel. Eža Gyt äray, End. Enm. areʔ, Wol. ǝrǝččä, Sel. irǝččä 'cows' [LGur. 82]. Leslau considers these forms to be Cushitisms but at the // same time compares them with Soq. ʔerehon 'small cattle', semantically obviously inferior to the comparison with the present root. // Cf. Akk. turāḫu (tarāḫu) 'Bergziegenbock, Steinbock' OAkk. on [AHw. 1372] (in OAkk. as a PN only, well attested in OB, including Mari: DIS̆ izbum tu-ra-ḫu-um 'if the anomaly is a t.' Izbu III 36; АRM 18 12.19: ḳarnāt tu-ra-ḫi-im 't.'s horns'; v. [Salonen Jagd 195, 265] for further references) and Syr. ta(ʔ)rāḥā (tārūḥā) 'capra caucasica' [Brock. 834], [PS 4499]. // Related with tV-prefix and a meaning shift? At the same time, the Akk. term comes very close to its Sum. lexical correspondence DÀRA (read as du-ra-aḫ in early LL). Note also that in [DLU 137] Ugr. drḫ is translated as 'cabra montés' and compared to the Akk. and Syr. terms above, but the only passage where it is found is too fragmentary to support such and interpretation (1.82.37: ...]lk drḫm ...). As for Arb. taʔruḫ- quoted without translation in [Brock. 834], it is not found in any available Arabic dictionary, European or national, and most probably does not exist. // [Fron. 30]: *ʔarḫ- 'giovenca' (Soq., Arb., Ugr., Akk.); [DRS 32]: Akk., Arb., Ugr., Tgr. (not in [LH]), Tna., Soq.; [DLU 49]: Ugr., Akk.; [LS 74]: Soq., Arb., Akk., Tgr. (not in [LH]), Tna.
