Proto-Kui-Kuwi : *vʔira
Meaning : earth, soil
Kui : vira, vire
Khuttia Kui : vira'a, vira
Kuwi (Fitzgerald) : i'ṛa
Kuwi (Schulze) : ī'ira
Sunkarametta Kuwi : i'ira
Parja Kuwi : vir'a
Tekriya Kuwi : vir'a
Kuwi (Mahanti) : wirhā, wirgā, wirkā
Kuwi (Israel) : iʔira "earth, soil, gravel"
Notes : A fantastic example of an ANLAUT laryngeal cluster, but so it is. Only by postulating such a cluster can we explain the unique glottal stop metathese in Kui: *vʔira > virʔa. In Kuwi no such metathese happened, but the cluster was simplified (*vʔ- > *ʔ-), and a prothetical i- was developed before the glottal stop to prevent it from beginning the word. One question is: where does this unnatural cluster come from? It is indeed hard to answer, since there are no external parallels and no obvious source of borrowing. One possible answer is that *vʔ- < *vy-, in which case *vyira can be traced back to *vay-ira and we can compare it with PDR *vay-, which is really 'to put, place', but has a secondary meaning 'to sow' and, in fact, with a suffixal -p-, in Tamil has got the meaning 'earth'. In this case, however, the second component is unclear; it is even unclear whether it is a root or a suffix.
Number in DED : 5410
kuiet-meaning,kuiet-kui,kuiet-kuttia,kuiet-kuwi_f,kuiet-kuwi_s,kuiet-kuwi_su,kuiet-kuwi_p,kuiet-kuwi_t,kuiet-kuwi_mah,kuiet-kuwi_isr,kuiet-notes,kuiet-dednum,
