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ko

ka

masc nom sg of ka (interr); masc nom sg of ka (pron); masc nom sg of ki (interr)

1. ka (pron): who?; what?; which?
2. ka (pron): where?
3. ki (pron): who?; what?; which?
4. ko (pron): who?; what?; which?

Etymology. From Indo-European *kwo-, the interrogative stem underlying English who, Latin quod, Greek tis (via *kwis). The Pali form ko shows the nominative singular masculine of ka; the stem ka- is attested across Indo-European languages as the foundation of question-words. In Pali, ka functions as both interrogative ('who is this?') and indefinite ('someone, anyone'), a semantic overlap found throughout Indo-European.

Meanings from the Digital Pāḷi Dictionary; morphology and etymology by Claude.

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