Proto-North Caucasian: *č_ɦǝ̄rV
Meaning: skin, shell
Notes: Reconstructed for the PEC level. Correspondences are regular (some doubts are raised by PTs *-ɔ-: one would rather expect *-o-). Cf. also Hurr. šāri(y)-annǝ 'coat of mail' ( > Akkad. š/sirijām, Hebr. sirjōn), see Diakonoff-Starostin 1986, 42.
It is tempting to compare the reconstructed form *č_ɦǝ̄rV with East Iranian forms meaning 'coat of mail', 'armour': Osset. zɣär / äsqär, Afg. zɣara etc. (see Abayev 1989, 309), which are etymologically rather obscure. A more recent loan from Nakh is Osset. c̣ar / c̣arä 'skin, bark' (see Abayev 1958, 330).
Shagirov (1983, 134) compares the Lezg. forms with some WC forms meaning 'milk'; this is obviously wrong, both for semantic reasons (the meaning 'cream' in some Lezg. languages is secondary) and for phonetic reasons (see the discussion under PNC *rħăƛwV).
