Proto-North Caucasian: *mirć(w)Ē ( ~ -ä̆-)
Meaning: knife, sickle
Notes: Correspondences are fully regular (*m- before a following non-nasal liquid yielding *b- in PWC), and, despite the root's not wide representation in EC, its PNC antiquity seems quite probable. Not quite secure is the reconstruction of labialisation in PNC: in PWC we would rather expect a usual dissimilatory delabialisation after a labial. Since the attested Av.-And.-Tsezian forms can go back both to *-ćw- and to *-ć-, we would prefer to reconstruct a non-labialized *-ć- and assume an assimilatory process in PWC.
