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mañhi

ahaṃ

1st person singular nominative pronoun + emphatic particle

1. ahaṃ (pron): I
2. ma (ve): (gram) ma; verbal ending of the present tense 1st person plural
3. ma (letter): (gram) letter m; 31st letter of the alphabet; nasal consonant
4. maṃ (pron): me (object)
5. maṃ (ind): weal, good
6. mā (fem): moon
7. mā (root): (gram) √mā (measure)

Built from

• ahaṃ — root · I
  First-person singular nominative pronoun from IE *eg-; cognate with English 'I', Latin 'ego', Greek 'egō'. The concrete sense is 'the speaker present here'.
• hi — ending · indeed, truly
  Emphatic particle affirming or intensifying the preceding word. Marks pragmatic emphasis in speech; cognate with Greek gē (indeed) and the emphatic force of Latin -ce.

Analysis. ahaṃ (I) + hi (emphatic particle meaning 'indeed, truly'). The particle hi reinforces the pronoun, marking emphasis or contrast in the utterance.

Etymology. ahaṃ derives from Indo-European *eg-, the first-person singular pronoun seen in English 'I' and Latin 'ego'. The particle hi comes from *ghe, an emphatic/assertive particle found in Greek gē (indeed) and related to the Latin emphatic -ce. Together they form a marked, emphatic assertion of the subject.

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

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