Proto-Nakh: *foʔ
Meaning: 1 grain 2 egg 3 grain forage
Chechen: hoʔa 2, hoʔ 3
Ingush: fuʔ 1,3
Batsbi: oʔ 1
Comments: The two words in Chech. are hard to separate, although words meaning "egg" belong to the 3d class, and words meaning "grain" - to the 6th class in Chech. and Ing. (in Ing. fuʔ "grain forage" vacillates between 5th and 6th classes, and in Bacb. oʔ "grain" belongs to the 5th class). The original meaning is pro- bably "grain, grain forage" (cf. the external evidence) with a secondary de- velopment of meaning "grain > egg". The Chech. form hoʔa is obviously a result of a secondary analogy with the obl. stem hoʔa- (Ing. fuʔo).
The vowel -u- (instead of -o-) in Ing. (cf. also Chech. Cheb. huʔa, Pharch. huʔ "egg") is due to the strong labializing influence of initial *f-.
