Proto-North Caucasian: *śwänq̇_ī
Meaning: gum, ink
Notes: An interesting common NC term. It had obviously signified some dying stuff for ornament (in WC the meaning shifted to the ornament itself - whence 'letter, document'). Phonetically the correspondence is quite satisfactory; perhaps, however, we should reconstruct *śämq̇_ī with shift of labialisation in PWC (*śämq̇_ī > *śwänq̇_ī > *š́ʷǝq́I:a) rather than suppose loss of labialisation in PEC (all EC form point to PEC *śänq̇_ī). Of course, Abdullayev's treatment of the Darg. form as šin 'water' + q̇Ia 'roasted grain' (see Shagirov 2,136) should be considered as folk etymology.
The root has interesting parallels, particularly, in Semitic: Arab. summāq 'Rhus coriaria L.', a plant used for dying into black). From Arabic it penetrated into Persian (summāk), then through Turkic (Tat. sumax etc.) - into Ossetian s(y)mäg 'iron vitriol', and from Ossetian - into Georg. dial. smagai id. The Semitic word was spread also in European languages (Engl. sumac, Russ. сумах etc.). See Abayev 3, 198-99, Starostin 1985, 91.
