Proto-North Caucasian: *mɦŏχV (/*χŏmɦV)
Meaning: iron; an object made of iron
Notes: Reconstructed for the PEC level. Correspondences are regular (except that we would rather expect *muχ or *maχ in PD - thus it is not excluded that the PD form, as well as Lak. meχ:, is also a loanword). Since the root is often used for denoting objects made of iron (beads, horseshoe, hoe/mattock etc.), it seems tempting to compare Ub. maχʷǝ́ta 'hoe'. Phonetically the comparison seems satisfactory (presupposing PNC *mɦŏχU), but the Ub. word does not have cognates in other WC languages, and its morphological structure is not quite clear, so the problem needs further investigation.
