Devil
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Root
kwira
to climb, to ascend, to mount, to rise
Devil traces to *gʷelH-, throw, matching Shona kwira, to rise
- Confidence
- 44/100
- Root language
- Shona
- Descent begins
- devilEnglish
The consensus position
Mainstream comparative linguistics derives devil from Old English deofol, borrowed from Christian Latin diabolus, from Greek diabolos "slanderer", an agent noun of diaballo "throw across, accuse", from dia plus ballo, the latter from Proto-Indo-European *gʷelH- "to throw". No Bantu connection is entertained, and Shona dhiyabhorosi is understood as a mission-era loan in the opposite direction.
The working behind this.
The full descent — 9 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.
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