ḳéní - to suckle (JL 147)

Leslau is probably correct in his identification of Proto-MSA *ḳny ‘to rear’ with PS *ḳny ‘to buy, to acquire, to possess’ (for which see HALOT 1111, CDG 437 and Kogan 2015:89), but the semantic shift is peculiar and has no immediate precedent elsewhere in Semitic. One wonders whether the meaning “to suckle” for Mhr. ḳənū and Jib. ḳéní may have developed by contamination with PS *ynḳ, which otherwise left no trace in MSA (cf. SEDNo. 83v). Tgr. ḳäna ‘to grow together’ (WTS 253) is too isolated to be taken as a reliable cognate in spite of the remarkable semantic proximity. (Kogan 2015:561)