peh₂-

The root *peh₂- ("to protect, to feed, to shepherd") generates vocabulary at the intersection of sustenance and guardianship. The semantic core — providing food and protection — reflects a pastoral society in which feeding and guarding livestock were aspects of the same activity. Latin pāscere ("to feed, to pasture") and its frequentative pastāre yield pasture, pastor ("shepherd," then "spiritual shepherd"), pastoral, and repast. The derivative pābulum ("food, fodder") gives pabulum. The related pānis ("bread," if from *peh₂-ni-, though this is debated) yields companion (com-pāniō, "one who shares bread"), company, and pantry. English food (from Old English fōda, Proto-Germanic *fōdō) and feed (from Old English fēdan) derive from the zero-grade *ph₂- with regular Germanic development. Foster (from Old English fōstrian, "to nourish") and fodder belong to the same family. The semantic range in Germanic encompasses both physical nourishment and metaphorical nurturing. Greek patéomai ("I eat") is a less prominent reflex, largely replaced by esthíō in common usage. Sanskrit pā́ti ("protects, guards") emphasises the guardian sense rather than the feeding sense. The compound go-pā ("cow-protector," i.e., "cowherd") and the derivative pāla ("protector, guardian") appear in names like Gopāla (an epithet of Krishna) and in the political title mahā-pāla ("great protector"). The bifurcation between "feed" (dominant in Latin and Germanic) and "protect" (dominant in Sanskrit) illustrates how a single PIE root with a unified pastoral meaning can diverge as the cultural context changes. In a herding society, feeding and guarding are inseparable; as societies specialise, the vocabulary specialises with them.