One of the most fun things about Chitimacha is the multitude of words you can derive from a single root. Take the word ke- ‘to be close, beside’. From this root alone, you can form all of the following words:

• kecwa- ‘to walk up close to something’ (-cwa ’to move upright)
• kedi- ‘to crawl close’ (-di ‘to move horizontally’)
• keduwa- ‘to wash ashore’ (-duwa ‘to move suddenly’)
• kepi- ‘to bring something up close’ (-pi ‘to make, cause’)
• ketgext- ‘to plaster or paint a wall’ (-tgext ‘dump or dish out a soft mass’)
• keti- ‘to mash something’ (-ti ‘to handle multiple things’; literally, ‘to bring multiple things closer together’)
• ketixt- ‘to go away, take oneself off’ (tixt- ‘to fall’; literally, ‘to fall off being close’)
  • Used in the imperative, this is the same as saying ‘leave off!’ or ‘buzz off!’ in English
• kewi- ‘to bring one’s ship, vessel up close’ (-wi ‘to handle, pull’)
• kext- ‘to bring something close’ (-xt ‘to carry’)
• key- ‘to go up close’ (-y ‘to move’)
• kecun ’between’ (cun ‘for’)
• keta ‘side, a person’s side’ (-ta a suffix that makes body part words out of nouns)

It’s also possible that the word keeta ‘eight’ comes from ke-. How does this make sense? Well, many counting systems are based on parts of the body, because that’s what you count with. Many are based on counting fingers, but some get really elaborate, and count joints, limbs, or other parts of the body. I suspect this happened in Chitimacha as well, because a handful of numbers end in the suffix -ta, which makes words for body parts from nouns. So keeta might be ‘the side’, perhaps the side of the hand (if you run out of fingers on one hand you can start counting other parts).

My favorite derivative of ke-, however, is the word keta ‘friend’. What better way to talk about a friend than ‘(person at) your side’?