French

Root

musika

market, trading place

Merci aligns with Shona musika market on merk trade frame

Confidence
42/100
Root language
Shona
Descent begins
merciFrench

The consensus position

French merci comes from Old French merci ‘favor, pity’, from Latin mercedem ‘wages, reward, favor’, ultimately related to Latin merx ‘wares’, with the deeper base either PIE *merk- ‘trade’ or a loan from Etruscan.

The working behind this.

The full descent — 6 links from the attested form down to the root — the segment-by-segment correspondences, the phonological breakdown and the case for the derivation are behind an account.

An account opens 10 entries in full, free.

Elsewhere in the corpus