רֵאשִׁיתreshit

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Ancient Hebrew

Root

rasha

to be uppermost, to set at the head, to send ahead; in the nominal murasha, the foremost one, the senior, the head of a line

Reshith descends from Shona rasha, to be uppermost, the foremost one

Confidence
71/100
Root language
Shona
Descent begins
רֵאשִׁית (rēʾšîṯ)Ancient Hebrew

The consensus position

Mainstream comparative Semitics derives רֵאשִׁית from Hebrew רֹאשׁ "head" plus the abstract nominal suffix -îṯ, going back to Proto-Semitic *raʾš- "head", with cognates in Akkadian rēšu, Ugaritic rʾš, Arabic raʾs, Aramaic rēš and Geʿez rəʾs. No relationship to Bantu is recognised, and any Proto-Afroasiatic extension of the root is regarded as contested.

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