This reading predates the current method.

A rerun is stored as a new version. The current reading stays in the history.

Sister traced

Done

Sister/svitsira

to deliver to someone, to make reach

The native candidate svitsira keeps the deep-frame consonants s w s r by rule, with w realized as v and r retained; the affricate ts arises from the productive causative -tsa before r, so the extra stop is morphological. The urban Shona sisi is the highest semantic match but is a clear recent loan from English and is excluded. The semantic bridge is long: svitsira means deliver or make reach, not sister, so the selection rests on the strong frame rather than meaning. Verdict partial, stratum native.

Those delivered or made to reach a household become its members; a sister is the delivered female member by birth, an abstracted kin application of reach-deliver.

Consensus position

English sister descends from Proto-Germanic *swestēr from Proto-Indo-European *swésōr; it is unrelated to Bantu or Shona etyma.

Confidence

41/ 100
0255075100

Consonantal frame aligns well by rule, but the semantic bridge is distant and the inserted ts is morphological, not inherited.

Same root in the corpus

Hodos

Descent of Sister

Done
  1. sisterEnglishattested

    female sibling

    modern

  2. sister, suster, systerMiddle Englishattested

    female sibling; forms partly influenced by Old Norse systir

    c. 1200-1500

  3. sweostor (also sweoster, swustor, swystor, swestar)Old Englishattested

    sister

    c. 900 CE

  4. *swesterProto-West Germanicreconstructed

    sister

    1st millennium CE

  5. *swestērProto-Germanicreconstructed

    sister

    c. 500 BCE-200 CE

  6. *swésōrProto-Indo-Europeanreconstructed

    sister

    c. 4000-2500 BCE

svitsiraShona

to deliver to someone, to make reach

attestedreconstructedproposed

Articulation

Done

Articulation

/ˈsɪstə/

sɪs·tə
Skeleton
s s t
Vowels
ɪ-ə
Stress
first syllable

Under Shona phonotactics

Attested form (English): sister /ˈsɪstə/ Reconstructed frame: consonants s-s-t; vowels ɪ-ə Shona (proposed nativisation): sisata Derivation: map English vowels to five-vowel inventory (ɪ -> i, ə -> a) giving s-i-s-t-a; break the illegal cluster /s.t/ by inserting anepenthetic vowel that copies the following vowel (-> si-sa-ta) to create open CV syllables. No prenasalised stop is expected in this adaptation because /t/ remains voiceless and non-prenasalised in surface Shona here.

s

alveolar, voiceless fricative

s

alveolar, voiceless fricative

t

alveolar, voiceless stop

Correspondence

Done

Segment mapping

Segment mapping between the reconstructed root on the upper arc and the Shona form on the lower arc.s to s. Alveolar s retainedw to v. PIE w corresponds to Shona vs to s. Second s retained before r positionr to r. r retainede to i. Mid front e maps to iō to i a. Long o collapses to i plus final aØ to t. Causative -tsa inserts t before rswsreōØsvsrii at

Sound correspondences

  • stosAlveolar s retained
  • wtovPIE w corresponds to Shona v
  • stosSecond s retained before r position
  • rtorr retained
  • etoiMid front e maps to i
  • ōtoi aLong o collapses to i plus final a
  • ØtotCausative -tsa inserts t before r

Ranked candidates

Frames measured against *swésōr

kusvitsiraShona

ku- infinitive prefix + -svitsir- stem (svika arrive + causative -isa > -tsa + applicative -ira) + -a final vowel

frame partial

native

Built on native svika arrive. The svik- causativises to -svitsa by regular Shona morphophonemics and takes the applicative -ira. Cognate motion roots exist widely in Bantu, and this verb is productive in Shona independent of any European contact.

to deliver to, to bring to someone, to make reach for

PIE frame s-w-s-r. kusvitsira stem svitsir has s v s r in order if we treat w~v and recognise the ts from causative coalescence as inserting the second sibilant. Final r aligns. One extra coronal stop from causativisation remains unexplained, hence partial.

Derived senses: to hand over to someone, to introduce into

Sound72
Sense6
kusweraShona

ku- infinitive prefix + -swer- stem + -a final vowel

frame partial

native

Everyday native verb with no contact route and clear Bantu pedigree in Shona. Productive derivatives exist in the language.

to spend the day, to remain through the day

Matches s w r directly; the inner s of the PIE frame is missing. No foreign influence, consonants map by straightforward identity for s and r and by w~w. Partial due to the absent medial s.

Derived senses: to linger all day, to remain in a place during daytime

Sound63
Sense2
sisiShona

Ø- borrowed stem -sisi (no Bantu class morphology)

frame fails

loan into shona

Colloquial urban Shona from English or Afrikaans sister. Mission and school vocabulary; transparent recent borrowing.

sister; respectful address to a young woman; nurse

Matches the modern English surface s-s but lacks the w and r of the PIE frame and carries a recent loan profile. Fails the frame test against the deep root and fails the stratum gate as a clear borrowing.

Derived senses: title for female church member, address for a nurse

Sound44
Sense88
hanzvadziShona

Ø- class 9 prefix + -hanzvadzi stem

frame fails

native

Core Shona kin term with robust Bantu-internal structure and no contact etymology.

sister, sibling of opposite sex (relative to a male ego)

Semantics are exact, but the stem’s consonants h-nz-v-dz differ completely from the PIE frame s-w-s-r. This is the native translation, not a sound-aligned cognate or reflex.

Derived senses: general term for sister in many contexts

Sound18
Sense96

These are unrelated forms that merely sound alike; the only true kin-term here is hanzvadzi, while the better sound-shapes are ordinary motion or time verbs.

Attestation

Done

How the meaning travelled

Stable kinship term; a proposed internal analysis links PIE swe- own + -sōr woman to yield woman of one’s own family, later generalized as sister in all branches.

Where the record thins

Proto-Germanic vocalism varies in the literature: *swestēr vs *swistr vs *swestr-. Forms are aligned by regular sound correspondences, but exact preforms differ by model. An internal morphological analysis of PIE *swésōr as swe- own + -sōr woman is proposed, not universally accepted; some treat the word as a fixed kinship term without transparent morphology. ([en.wiktionary.org](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction%3AProto-Germanic/swest%C4%93r?utm_source=openai))

Cognates of *swésōr

Proto-Indo-European. sister

soror

Latin

sister

svásṛ- (svasar-)

Sanskrit

sister

sesuo (sesuõ)

Lithuanian

sister

*sestra > sestra

Proto-Slavic > Russian

sister

swistar

Gothic

sister

Schwester

German

sister

zuster

Dutch

sister

systir

Old Norse

sister

Community

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Provenance

Source
Generated
First traced by
dakaraimshoperi
Recorded
2026-07-26
Method
0239a2ea33d5

This was produced under an earlier version of the method. The analytical rules have since been tightened, so it may not reflect what the pipeline would conclude today.