Этимология слова "обитать"

Question

В Викисловаре пишут, что слово происходит от древнерусского обитати. Я недавно начал учить французский, там есть похожее слово с таким же значением - habiter (жить, обитать), которое, в свою очередь, происходит от латинского слова habitō. Имеют ли эти слова какие-то более древние общие корни?

Answer 1

No, the French and the Russian words are not etymologically connected.

The French word derives from Latin habito ("I have repeatedly") which in its turn derives from habeo ("I have") and ultimately from PIE *gʰabʰ/gʰebʰ- ("to give"). This word is akin to English "to give" and OCS гобина ("vast harvest").

Note that the "t" inside the word is a sign of frequentative, a Latin innovation. Compare canto ("I sing repeatedly") < cano ("I sing"), dicto ("I say repeatedly") < dico ("I say") etc. These words are related to English "cantata", "hen", "dictator" and "teach", respectively, but "cantata" and "dictator" have their ancestors originated in Latin and were borrowed with the Latin-originated t, while "hen" and "teach" were developed from the same PIE roots independently.

The Russian word can be traced to its Proto-Slavic ancestor *vitati ("to dwell") which is akin to Baltic words meaning "place", but no further to PIE.