The Meaning of Arattagar

In 1927 the Master of many ancient languages, L.A. Waddell, LL.D, CB, CIE, Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Fellow of the Linnaean Society, Honorary Correspondent of the Indian Archaeological Survey, Professor of Tibetan (London University.), recorded in the Introduction of his book "A Sumer Aryan Dictionary" :-

" ... as a result of my actual detailed analysis and comparision of the Sumerian with the Aryan family of languages, I recorded that the Sumerian proved to be radically Aryan in its words, structure and script, and that 'the whole family of Aryan languages with their written letters is derived from the Phoenician language and script and its parent the Sumerian, and that about fifty per cent. of the commonest words in use in the English language today is discovered to be Sumerian in origin with the same word-form, sound and meaning."

The definitions relating to Aratta from Waddell's dictionary (shown below) provide just one example of how the culture of Sumer progressively radiated across Europe, influencing the linguistic development of other nations and civilisations. They also show that Aratta means the Earth, or land, and Gar means the four quarters.

Ancient term	Civilisation - Nation	Definition
Arata-Gar, Ereti	Sumerian	The Earth of the four quarters (Gar)
Aratta, Arata	Sumerian	Earth, land, massive, heavy, high, hard
Kibrat-arba	Akkadian	The four quarters of the world
Aratta, Aritta	Egyptian	Belonging to the earth
Aird, Ard	Cornish & Celtic	Quarter of the Earth, cardinal points
Airt	Scottish	Quarters of the Earth, direction
Jorthe, Iord	Gothic, Ancient Briton, Icelandic	The Earth, the world
Eorthe	Anglo-Saxon	The Earth
Erde	Germanic	The Earth
Erthe	Old English	The Earth

It is tempting to believe that the term Arattagar was used by Sumerians to refer to the Earth being quartered into the four cardinal directions. However, it is also clear that the Sumerians spoke of 'the four regions' of the Earth. These were (1) Sumer, centred on the fertile Tigris/Euphrates Valley, (2) Egypt, centred on the fertile Nile Valley, (3) Indus, centred on the fertile Indus Valley, and (4) Sinai, which was inhospitable to man and remained the domain of the 'gods'.