Avocado
From SUALEX
Among the Southern Uto-Aztecan languages, only Nahuan and Coracholan languages have terms for "avocado" (Persea spp.). The terms are cognate, but nevertheless they should probably not be reconstructed for proto-Corachol-Nahuan, as the phonology suggests they are loaned into Corachol from Proto-Nahuan. As for how the root arose in Nahua, there are two possible scenarios. 1. The root may be a loan from Totonacan, as first suggested by Kaufman 2001. 2. the root may have been coined in early proto-Nahuatl as either *awaka or *pawaka or as *pewaka[1].
Etymological Scenario 1 - Totonacan Borrowing: Kaufman proposed that the Nahuan root pawa, which refers to the wild avocado or pagua, was borrowed from the Totonacan word *lhpaw "wild avocado". According to (Albert Davletshin pers. comm. 2023) the root *lhpaw can be reconstructed to Proto-Tepehua-Totonacan, which split around 1000 BCE - even earlier before the split between the Tepehuan and Totonacan languages the root would have had a final vowel which was lost after sonorants. To account for the fact that Nahuan has pawa, it would then have been borrowed already before 1000 BCE. This is much earlier than even proto-Corachol-Nahuan, perhaps around the time the Minor Sonoran languages were a single language group - but the root is only reconstructible for Nahuan. So chronologically, this borrowing proposal is not very strong. Additionally, the Uto-Aztecan recipient language would have had to borrow it without the lh- (which Davletshin considers a prefix for plant names).
Etymological Scenario 2 - Formation in Pre-Nahua: 2a. Dakin proposes that the word is formed in pre-Nahua, based on the root *pawa "wild avocado" + with the added suffix -ka, here meaning soething like "thing related to X". It would have been borrowed before the p>Ø sound change in order to turn *pawaka into awaka.
2b. Another proposal associates awakatl with the root awa- "oak" (Quercus spp.), also with the suffix -ka, meaning thing related to oak.
2c. My own proposal, suggests that it was formed based on the root *pewa "skin, hide", with the -ka suffix.
Notes
- ↑ In Pharao Hansen (2021) I reconstruct it as *pɨwaka "thing with skin/hide", but this is in fact an anachronism as the PSUA ɨ in *pɨwa "skin/hide" would have been e in pre-Nahua.