תֹּהוּtohu
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Root
tuhu
empty-handed, with nothing, destitute; also tuhwa, plain, bare, unadorned, blank
Hebrew tohu descends from Shona tuhu, empty, bare, having nothing
- Confidence
- 72/100
- Root language
- Shona
- Descent begins
- tohu (tohu wa-vohu)Hebrew
The consensus position
Mainstream comparative Semitics treats תֹּהוּ as a native Northwest Semitic noun of a weak final-radical root, compared with Arabic tīh 'trackless desert' and tāha 'to go astray' and with Aramaic and Syriac forms meaning 'be dazed'. No relationship to Shona or to any Bantu language is recognised, and the Shona lexicon is held to be unconnected to Semitic vocabulary except through modern mission-era loans.
The working behind this.
The full descent — 5 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