Excerpt from Ogun, African Fire Philosophy and the Meaning of KMT by Asar Imhotep (unpublished)
Egyptian
w "district, region"
w “they, them, their”
W-nTu “people”
wr (Coptic beri) “new, young, a new thing”
WH.wt "people, nation"
wh.t "Colony, gathering"
wH.yt "family, kindred, relatives"
wH.yt "village"
w>b
q > z (palatalization)
wA "far, distant"
wrt [name of the flame] Wb I, 332 S
wr "great"
wr “cow, bull”
Aw "time span"
wr “bird, swallow”;
wr “young bird” Cerny: CED S 98
1
www.etymonline.com (retrieved March 4, 2012)
W = b correspondences
Other African Languages
Niger-Congo ba "place, region"
PCS *ba “village”
Common-Bantu ba “they, them, their” (also word for
“people)
Common-Bantu Ba-ntu “people”,
Reflex in ciLuba: mbedi; a-mbedi (m- prefix) "first"
(alternate form: -à/-a kumpàla "first, premiere, initial"). [ r/l
+ i > di]
Basaa mbog “cosmos, nation”; li bog “village”; Duala e
boko “family”; i boka “assembly”; Yambassa mbogo
“society”; ciLuba bukwa "belonging to an ethnic group,
together, group, species, genus, system."
Swahili bunge “national assembly”; Proto-Bantu *poogo;
*poko “unity”
ciLuba: lubanzi "court/yard, remains, home, family"
banza "settle in household, be installed"
ciBanza "open area outside the house, where you give birth,
[the place] where one is born, appointment"
cilemba wa Mbanza "polygamous"
ciLuba b-ule(a) "length, height, depth, duration"; pabule(a)
"remote")
ciLuba mu-fwè(à) “fire”; bedi “first, premiere” (words for
“first, cause” are also words for “fire”; semantic extension);
piila “burn, smolder, be hot, mature/ripe”
ciLuba: bale "great, high, long"
[may be source of English “bull”] O.E. bula "a bull, a
steer," or O.N. boli "bull," both from P.Gmc. *bullon- (cf.
M.Du. bulle, Ger. Bulle), perhaps from a Germanic verbal
stem meaning "to roar," which survives in some German
dialects and perhaps in the first element of boulder (q.v.).
The other possibility is that it is from PIE *bhln-, from root
*bhel- (2) "to blow, inflate, swell" (see bole).1
ciLuba diba “time, sun, hour, show/demonstrate/illustrate”
Ngombe mbulu “bird”; “Bantu” (Johnston 1922: 255) bun
“bird” (Kwango-Kasai Group), also buru, bulu, mburu,
puru etc.as in Ruwenzori-Semliki languages (p.
256) [Malay has burung “bird”, prefixed to bird names as a
classifier]. [Mangbetu bulu “man, speech”]