Proto-West-Caucasian: *Pǝ̃zV
Meaning: 1 candle 2 lamp 3 light 4 ray
Abkhaz: a-č̌ǝ́-mza 1
Abaza: mza 2
Adyghe: bzǝj 4
Kabardian: bzij 4
Ubykh: mǝʒá 2,3
Comments: PAT *mǝza (cf. also Bz. á-mza 'candle, splinter'; -čǝ- in Abkh. goes back to a-čá "wax"). PAK *bzǝ́-jǝ. Ub. def. á-mʒa.
Shagirov (1, 94 - 95) relates PAK *bzǝ́jǝ to *bza "tongue"; the two roots may indeed have contaminated within some compounds, but originally have been, of course, quite different. The form *bzǝ́jǝ is also used in Kab. to denote "maize stalk" and both in Ad. and Kab. within the form Ad. q:ā-mzǝj, Kab. q:ā-bzij "bird's feather" which Shagirov (1, 679) plausibly explains as a distortion of q:az-bzǝj(ǝ) "goose feather" (q:az < Turk. qaz 'goose').
