לַיְלָהlaylah

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Ancient Hebrew

Root

rara

to lie down, to sleep, to spend the night

Hebrew laylah traces to Shona rara, to lie down for the night

Confidence
62/100
Root language
Shona
Descent begins
לַיְלָה (laylāh)Hebrew

The consensus position

Mainstream comparative Semitics derives laylāh from a Proto-Semitic base *layl- / *lay(V)l- meaning night, with cognates in Arabic layl, Aramaic lêlyā, Ugaritic lyl, Geez lelit and Akkadian līlâtu, the Hebrew -āh being a secondary afformative. No relationship to Bantu is recognised; Shona kurara descends independently from Proto-Bantu *-daad- and usiku from *-siku.

The working behind this.

The full descent — 8 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