Reconstruction:Proto-Nakh/wir

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

Etymology

Uncertain. Compare with Old Georgian ვირი (viri, “donkey, ass”).

According to mammalogist and paleontologist Vera Gromova, as of 1947, there is still no information about the time of the appearance of the domestic donkey in the Caucasus.

According to a group of scientists, as of 2020, “[c]urrent knowledge about the evolutionary history of donkeys is still incomplete due to the lack of archeological and whole-genome diversity data.” As a result of their research, they came to the conclusion that donkeys were first domesticated in North Africa, thereby confirming the classical theory of the origin of domestic donkeys.

Noun

*wir (stem *war-)

donkey

Descendants

Bats: ვირ class dd (vir)
Vainakh:
- Chechen: вир class dd (vir)
- Ingush: вир class jj (vir)

References

Gromova, V. I. (1947) “К вопросу о первом появлении домашнего осла в Средней Азии [On the question of the first appearance of a domestic donkey in Central Asia]” in Доклады Академии Наук СССР (in Russian), volume 56, number 2, page 192
Wang, C., Li, H., Guo, Y., Huang, J., Sun, Y., Min, J., Wang, J., Fang, X., Zhao, Z., Wang, S., Zhang, Y., Liu, Q., Jiang, Q., Wang, X., Guo, Y., Yang, C., Wang, Y., Tian, F., Zhuang, G., ... Zhong, J. (2020). Donkey genomes provide new insights into domestication and selection for coat color. Nature Communications, 11, Article 6014. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19813-7