It is tempting to compare the Soqotri word to Hbr. beˀūšīm ‘sour, unripe berries’, presumably going back to PS *bˀš ‘to be bad, rotten’. That would imply that the Auslaut of the Soqotri word features -h < *š (bέˀih). From the semantic point of view, it is significant that, while in the speech of our language consulants, bέˀi is used as a general term for dates, the Vienna corpus it is systematically translated as ‘halbreife Datteln’ (Müller 1905:120 = بسرة).