One root, two faces of the same gesture: you ask for something, and you borrow it. Both are a request that expects something back. From there the family fans out: the question you ask, the poll that asks a crowd, the wish you ask of fate, and the act of lending (asking turned outward). The causative hif'il flips the direction: instead of asking to borrow, you lend. Every word here is verified against pealim, niqqud included.
The same root runs through the verb system. Each binyan is a voice: it bends the one idea into active, passive, causative or reciprocal. Tap to hear.
Only two binyanim are lexicalized here, but they sit at opposite ends of the same act: pa'al is asking/borrowing (you receive), hif'il is lending (you give). Hebrew uses one root for both sides of a loan, where English needs two different words.
Same root letters, different noun moulds (mishkalim). The mould tells you the function: who does it, the act of doing it, or the thing produced.
Strip the prefixes, suffixes and vowels. Three consonants remain, and the meaning lives there.