1.
a. men báˁad taẓ̂ímoʰ šéˀef ʸheʰ wa-díˀʸheʰ ˁážeʰ ɛ́ti ˁes di-kɔn fáḥre ‘After dinner he and his wife went to sleep. Then he told her everything that had happened to him’ (CSOL I 1:64)
b. ˁéyyek ḷɛˀέtɛ ˁéken ṭey ḳáṣṣaʰ di-neʸhámaˁs ken έˀɛfo di-yɛˀɛtéˀen ‘I would like to tell you a story which we can hear from people who tell stories’ (CSOL II 1:1)
2.
a. sáṭahan έti έˀɛfo fáḥre ‘The sultan assembled all the people’ (CSOL I 8:4)
‘To tell something (direct object) somebody (ḷe-)’ (1a, 1b).
‘To tell stories (without complement)’ (1b).
‘To assemble (with direct object)’ (2a).
Etymologically uncertain. It is unclear, in particular, whether the two rather dissimilar basic meanings of the postulated polysemantic Soqotri verb (‘to telľ and ‘to gather’) are (at least diachronically) related to each other.
As far as the meaning ‘to gather’ is concerned, a direct parallel is found in Yem. Arb. wty (III) ‘to collect, to gather’. It stands to reason that the eventual source is PWS *ˀtw ‘to come’ (> ‘to make come together’, ‘to bring together’), even if the synchronically attested Soqotri reflex of this root (éte) means ‘to pass by’. One wonders, further, whether the meaning ‘to telľ may be due to a specific semantic development of ‘to gather’ (< ‘to join, gather words, ideas’), cf. Arabic ˀallafa ‘to join’ and ‘to compose (a book, a treatise)’ and, perhaps, ḫabbara ‘to inform’ < PWS *ḫbr ‘to collect, to gather’ (сf. HALOT 287, CDG 257).