Ancient Hebrew
Root
-sheva
to glance sideways, to look askance, to peer out of the corner of the eye
Hebrew shaʿah descends from Shona sheva, to glance sideways
- Confidence
- 71/100
- Root language
- Shona
- Descent begins
- שָׁעָה shaʿahHebrew
The consensus position
Mainstream comparative Semitics treats שָׁעָה as native Semitic: a Hebrew verb "to gaze, turn toward" from a Proto-Semitic root *šʿh/*šʿy, with the time-noun "hour" either derived from it or borrowed from Aramaic under Hellenistic time-reckoning, and Arabic sāʿa and Swahili saa as later members of that same chain. No relationship to Shona or any Bantu language is recognised.
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