The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
Appendix I
Indo-European Roots
ENTRY:
bh-2
DEFINITION:
To speak. Oldest form *bhe2-, colored to *bha2-, contracted to *bh-. Derivatives include fate, infant, prophet, abandon, banish, symphony, confess, and blame. 1.fable, fabliau, fabulous, fado, fairy, fandango, fate, fay2; affable, fantoccini, ineffable, infant, infantry, preface, from Latin fr, to speak. 2.phasia; apophasis, prophet, from Greek phanai, to speak. 3a.ban1, from Old English bannan, to summon, proclaim, and Old Norse banna, to prohibit, curse; b.banal, banns; abandon, from Old French ban, feudal jurisdiction, summons to military service, proclamation, Old French bandon, power, and Old English gebann, proclamation; c.banish, from Old French banir, to banish; d.contraband, from Late Latin bannus,bannum, proclamation; e.bandit, from Italian bandire, to muster, band together (< to have been summoned). ae all from Germanic suffixed form *ban-wan,*bannan, to speak publicly (used of particular kinds of proclamation in feudal or prefeudal custom; to proclaim under penalty, summon to the levy, declare outlaw). 4. Suffixed form *bh-ni-.a.boon1, from Old Norse bn, prayer, request; b.bee1, perhaps from Old English bn, prayer, from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse bn, prayer. Both a and b from Germanic *bni-.5. Suffixed form *bh-ma.a.fame, famous; defame, infamous, from Latin fma, talk, reputation, fame; b.euphemism, Polyphemus, from Greek phm, saying, speech. 6. Suffixed o-grade form *bh-n-.phone2, phone, phoneme, phonetic, phono-, phony; anthem, antiphon, aphonia, cacophonous, euphony, symphony, from Greek phn, voice, sound, and (denominative) phnein, to speak. 7. Suffixed zero-grade form *bh-to-.confess, profess, from Latin fatr, to acknowledge, admit. 8.blame, blaspheme, from Greek blasphmos, blasphemous, perhaps from *ms-bh-mo-, speaking evil (blas-, evil; see mel-3). (Pokorny 2. bh- 105.)