h₂enh₁-
“to breathe”Breathe, blow, be alive
A PIE root meaning "to breathe," yielding Latin anima ("soul") and animus ("mind"), Greek ánemos ("wind"), Sanskrit ániti ("breathes") and ātmán ("self, soul"), and Old Norse andi ("breath, spirit").
Discussion
The root *h₂enh₁- ("to breathe") generates vocabulary spanning physiology, meteorology, and theology — three domains unified by the concept of moving air. The reconstruction appears in Pokorny (IEW 38–39) and Rix (LIV²), and the semantic range is discussed in detail by Benveniste (1969) and Mallory and Adams (1997). The two laryngeals — initial *h₂ (producing a-colouring) and final *h₁ (non-colouring) — are established by the vocalism of the reflexes and by the pattern of ablaut alternation.
Latin anima ("breath, soul, life") and animus ("mind, spirit, courage") represent the two primary nominal derivatives of the root. From anima: animal ("living being," literally "that which breathes"), animāre ("to give life to"), animōsitās ("spiritedness"), and the theological concept of the anima as the soul of a living being. From animus: equanimity (aequanimitās), magnanimity, pusillanimity, and unanimous. The distinction between anima (the vital breath, the life principle) and animus (the rational faculty, the spirit of intention) influenced Latin philosophical and theological discourse from Lucretius through Augustine. Benveniste (1969) analyses the semantic split as reflecting a PIE distinction between the breath of life and the breath of thought.
Greek ánemos (ἄνεμος, "wind") preserves the meteorological extension of the root: from personal breath to atmospheric wind. The derivative anemṓnē ("wind flower, anemone") and the technical term anemométron ("wind measurer") are formed on this base. The shift from "breath" to "wind" — the scaling of a physiological phenomenon to an atmospheric one — is semantically transparent and paralleled in other language families. Beekes (s.v. ἄνεμος) accepts the reconstruction.
Sanskrit ániti ("breathes") continues the verbal root directly. The nominal derivative ātmán ("self, soul"), conventionally analysed as *h₂enh₁-tmen ("breath-essence"), became a central concept in Indian philosophy: the individual self or soul, the subject of the Upanishadic inquiry into the nature of reality. The equation ātman = brahman in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad rests etymologically on the identification of the individual breath-soul with the universal principle. Mayrhofer (Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen) treats ātmán under this root, though the morphological analysis has been debated.
In Germanic, Old Norse andi ("breath, spirit") and the related ǫnd ("soul, life") continue the root. The wider Germanic vocabulary of breath was largely supplied by other formations (English breath from *bʰreh₁-), reducing the visibility of *h₂enh₁- in that branch. Old Irish anál ("breath") and Welsh anadl continue the Celtic reflex. The convergence of "breath" and "soul" vocabulary across Latin (anima), Sanskrit (ātmán), and Germanic (andi) — three geographically dispersed branches — establishes the breath–soul equation as a PIE conceptual inheritance rather than a parallel innovation.
Laryngeal Analysis
Contains both h₂ (initial) and h₁.
Ablaut
Full grade *h₂enh₁-, zero grade *h₂n̥h₁-.