bʰer-g-
“to hide, to protect, to bury”bury/protect
PIE root meaning to hide, protect, or bury. Ancestral to words for burial, shelter, and fortification.
Discussion
*bʰer-g- is a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to hide," "to protect," or "to bury," with semantic extensions into shelter, concealment, and fortification.
The root gives Old English beorgan "to protect, to shelter" (modern English bury, via a semantic shift from "protect" to "inter") and burg/burh "fortified place" (modern English borough, burg, burgh, and the -bury/-burgh in place names like Canterbury, Edinburgh, Hamburg). German bergen "to rescue, to hide" and Burg "castle, fortress" continue both senses.
The fortress/shelter sense (*bʰr̥gʰ-s) gave Germanic *burgz, which spread widely: English borough, burgess, burglar (one who breaks into a burg), bourgeois (via French), and the -burg suffix in European city names (Hamburg, Salzburg, Pittsburgh). The modern German verb bergen "to salvage, to rescue" preserves the "protect" sense.
In other branches, Old Church Slavonic brěgŭ "bank, shore" (Russian bereg "shore") may reflect a sense of natural shelter. The connection to the burial sense likely developed from "hiding" or "protecting" the dead by placing them in the earth.
Modern descendants include English bury, borough, burg, burglar, bourgeois, iceberg ("ice mountain/shelter"), and the -bury/-burgh in countless place names.
Notes
Source of English "bury", "borough", German "bergen" (to shelter).