✣ Word Garden

Proto-Indo-European · 21 September 2026

A word a day week

*h₂stḗr

approximately ‘h₂-stēr’ · reconstructed noun

  • star

Star, stellar, and asteroid are branches of one old night-sky word, though each arrived in English by a different route.

Then → now

The family reunion

*h₂stḗr → Proto-Germanic *sternǭ → Old English steorra → English star; *h₂stḗr → Latin stēlla → Latin stellāris → English stellar; *h₂stḗr → Ancient Greek astḗr → Greek asteroeidḗs → English asteroid; *h₂stḗr → Sanskrit tārā
Selected routes, not an exhaustive family tree. Intermediate forms are simplified for a readable first look.
  • GermanicEnglish starstar
  • ItalicEnglish stellarof the stars
  • GreekEnglish asteroidstar-like
  • Indo-AryanSanskrit tārāstar

Tiny sentence

*h₂stḗr h₁ésti.

star.NOM be.PRS.3SG

“There is a star.”

A tiny teaching reconstruction. It is designed to expose two familiar reconstructed forms, not to simulate an inscription.

Receipts

Sources and cautions

The initial *h₂ is reconstructed from comparison and colouring effects; it is not a letter found in a PIE manuscript.