Disease Names in Megrelian

Abstract

In Megrelian the general name for a disease is laxara and the common name for infectious diseases is patonefi.

A disease name may be a simple base (e.g., xvarca “the itch”), a compound (e.g., didpatonefi “smallpox”), or a syntagm (e.g., Cxvere patonefi “rubella”).

In Megrelian the terms denoting different diseases may be borrowings (e.g., wKarmaki “dropsy”). The cases of synonymy can also be found.