gʷem-

The root *gʷem- ("to come, to go, to step") provides the basic motion verb in several IE branches, with a characteristic semantic ambiguity between coming and going that is resolved differently in different languages. Latin venīre ("to come"), from *gʷm̥-yé-, shows the regular Italic treatment of *gʷ > v before a front vowel. The nasal in the root is preserved in the present stem. Derivatives include advent (adventus, "a coming to"), adventure (adventūra, "that which is about to come"), avenue (from advenīre, "to come to"), convene, convenient, convention, event, invent, prevent, revenue, souvenir, venue, and the names Venice and Vienna (both possibly from this root). Greek baínō (βαίνω, "I go, I step") shows *gʷ > b, the regular Greek treatment before a non-round vowel. The root appears in basis (básis, "step, base"), acrobat (akrobátēs, "one who walks on tiptoe"), and diabetes (diabaínein, "to walk through"). Sanskrit gámati and gácchati ("goes, comes") preserve the labialised velar as g (the regular Indo-Iranian outcome). The compound Jagannātha ("lord of the world," from jágat, "the going one," i.e., the world in motion) contains this root. In Germanic, the reflex is English come (from Old English cuman, Proto-Germanic *kwemaną), German kommen, and Gothic qiman. The *gʷ > kw development is regular for Germanic. The semantic narrowing to "come" (as opposed to "go") contrasts with Greek baínō, which means primarily "go." Old Irish do-icc ("comes") and Lithuanian gim̃ti ("to be born," from "to come into being") show further semantic developments. The Lithuanian shift from motion to birth is a natural extension: to be born is to come into existence.