Reconstruction:Proto-Nakh/maaraʁo

This Proto-Nakh entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

This Proto-Nakh entry contains original research. The reconstruction in this entry is based on published research, but the specific form presented here is not found in prior works.

Proto-Nakh

Alternative reconstructions

*marxo (Nikolaev, Starostin, Starostin Jr., Schrijver)

Etymology

According to Starostin and Nikolaev, inherited from Proto-Northeast Caucasian, with such cognates as Tabasaran мархь (marx, “rain”), Lezgi марф (marf, “rain”), Dargwa марка (marka, “rain”).

Reconstruction notes

It probably has the same structure as *ʁodaʁo (“haunch”). However, to date, no cases have been found of the consonant -ʁ- being devoiced to -x- after -r-. Compare with *barʁul (“rooster”) and Chechen орцха (orcxa, “bar [e.g. of soap], block [of brick, wood]; squared beam”) ~ Cheberloi dialect а̄рцогӏо (aarcoğo). If the Bats form is related to Vainakh, the consonant გ (g) is left unexplained.

When reconstructing the Proto-Nakh form, the following features should be taken into account: the presence of a long vowel in the Chechen form and the diphthong /ɔ̯ɑ/ in the Ingush form. Notably, this is probably the only case where the Ingush orthography does not reflect this diphthong present in the pronunciation. Unfortunately, Starostin and Nikolaev, Starostin Jr. and Schrijver do not take this into account in their works.

Old Armenian and Georgian unsorted borrowings may have been borrowed from the unconfirmed Bats form with suffix -ოლ (-ol).

Noun

*maaraʁo (stem *maaraʁ-)

cloud

Descendants

Bats: მარაგ class j (marag, “strewn thin mass of clouds in the night sky”)
- → Georgian: მარაგი (maragi, “sparsely clouded sky; cloud; thin cloud”) — Tusheti, Pshavi, Khevi, Kartli
Vainakh:
- Chechen: ма̄рха class jj (maarxa)
- Ingush: морх class jj (morx)

Unsorted borrowings

→? Old Armenian: մառախուղ (maṙaxuł, “fog, mist”)
→? Georgian: მარახული (maraxuli)

References

Nikolaev, Sergei L., Starostin, Sergei A. (1994) “*mărƛwĂ”, in A North Caucasian Etymological Dictionary‎^[1], Moscow: Asterisk Publishers, pages 795–796: “Proto-Nakh *marχo”
Starostin, George (2011) “Annotated Swadesh wordlists for the Nakh group (North Caucasian family)”, in The Global Lexicostatistical Database‎^[2], section 14, page 13
Ḳaḳašvili, Diana (2021) “Kartul-naxuri leksiḳuri ṗaralelebi [Georgian–Nakh Lexical Similarities]”, in Eṭimologiuri ʒiebani (in Georgian), volume XVIII, Tbilisi, page 24 of 19–26
Schrijver, Peter (2021) “A history of the vowel systems of the Nakh languages (East Caucasian), with special reference to umlaut in Chechen and Ingush”, in Languages of the Caucasus‎^[3], volume 5, →DOI, →ISSN, page 108: “*marχo”