Euphrates

The Euphrates (ⁱ/juːˈfreɪtiːz/; Sumerian: 𒌓𒄒𒉣: Buranuna, Akkadian: 𒌓𒄒𒉣: Purattu, Arabic: الفرات‎: al-Furāt, Syriac: ̇ܦܪܬ‎: Pǝrāt, Armenian: Եփրատ: Yeprat, Hebrew: פרת‎: Perat, Turkish: Fırat, Kurdish: Firat‎) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia. Originating in eastern Turkey, the Euphrates flows through Syria and Iraq to join the Tigris in the Shatt al-Arab, which empties into the Persian Gulf.

Etymology

The Ancient Greek form Euphrátēs (Ancient Greek: Εὐφράτης) was borrowed from Old Persian Ufrātu, itself from Elamite ú-ip-ra-tu-iš. The Elamite name is ultimately derived from the Sumerian Buranuna, possibly through the Akkadian name. In Akkadian the river was similarly called Purattu, which has been perpetuated in Semitic languages (cf. Syriac P(ə)rāṯ, Arabic al-Furrāt) and in other nearby languages of the time (cf. Hurrian Puranti, Sabarian Uruttu). The Elamite, Akkadian, and possibly Sumerian forms are suggested to be from an unrecorded substrate language. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov suggest the Proto-Sumerian *burudu "copper" (Sumerian urudu) as an origin, with an explanation that Euphrates was the river by which the copper ore was transported in rafts, since Mesopotamia was the center of copper metallurgy during the period.