кӏытыр

Khinalug

Etymology

According to Nikolayev / Starostin and Kassian, perhaps inherited from Proto-Northeast Caucasian *ḳwēmṭī ~ *ḳwēmṭō (“lip”) with a dissimilative deglottalisation of the second consonant and a non-standard meaning shift 'lip' → 'nose'. Kassian remarks that the final -ыр (-ɨr) looks like a fossilized plural exponent.

According to Asatrian, Old Armenian քիթ (kʻitʻ, “nose”) may be related.

Noun

кӏыты́р (ḳɨtɨ́r)

1. nose

   кӏытыр фыр кири ― ḳɨtɨr fɨr kiri ― то blow one’s nose

Derived terms

• кӏытыри (ḳɨtɨri, “nasal, of nose”, adjective)

References

• Asatrian, Garnik (2014) “‘Nose’ in Armenian”, in Iran and the Caucasus‎^[1], volume 18, number 2, page 148
• Ganijeva, F. A. (2002) “кӏытыр”, in Хиналугско-русский словарь [Khinalug–Russian Dictionary] (Бесписьменные языки Дагестана), Makhachkala: Dagestan Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, page 197a
• Klimov, G. A., Xalilov, M. Š. (2003) Словарь кавказских языков. Сопоставление основной лексики [Dictionary of Caucasian Languages. A comparison of the Basic Vocabulary] (in Russian), Moscow: Vostochnaya Literatura, →ISBN, page 88
• Kassian, A. (2013) “Annotated Swadesh wordlists for the Khinalug group (North Caucasian family)”, in The Global Lexicostatistical Database‎^[2], 61. NOSE
• Nikolaev, Sergei L., Starostin, Sergei A. (1994) “*ḳwēmṭī”, in A North Caucasian Etymological Dictionary‎^[3], Moscow: Asterisk Publishers, page 733