חֵמָרchemar
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Root
-himura
to blow up, to inflate, to cause to swell or puff out
Hebrew hemar descends from Shona himura, to swell and foam up
- Confidence
- 54/100
- Root language
- Shona
- Descent begins
- חֵמָר (ḥēmār)Hebrew
The consensus position
Mainstream comparative Semitics treats Hebrew חֵמָר as a Northwest Semitic noun on the triliteral root ḥ-m-r, related either to the sense "be red, dark red" (Arabic ʾaḥmar) or to "ferment, foam up" (Aramaic and Syriac ḥamrā "wine"), with no connection to Bantu languages; no Proto-Semitic word for bitumen specifically is reconstructible, and Hebrew's other pitch word kōpher is an Akkadian loan.
The working behind this.
The full descent — 7 links from the attested form down to the root — the segment-by-segment correspondences, the phonological breakdown and the case for the derivation are behind an account.
An account opens 10 entries in full, free.
Elsewhere in the corpus
- בראbara (kubara)to beget, to bring forth, to give birth; in Karanga and Ndau craft use also to pare or hollow out
- Edenhudendeabundance, plenty, superfluity; from -dende, gourd or large calabash
- Nekevahnengovenotch, grooved cut; one bearing a notched or bored thing (variant nhengove)
- ZakhárZikirato know thoroughly, to recognise, to be acquainted with, to hold in mind (applicative of -zika / -ziva, to know)
- Pesachpesato pass, to pass by, to go past, to swerve aside; kupesana, to pass one another without meeting
- Megiddogudurato knock off, to break off, to dislodge a piece