Senki nem tudja, hogy az "avarok" milyen nyelvűek voltak. Johanna Nichols amerikai szlavista szerint pl. a kései európai "avarok" iráni nyelvűek lehettek/ azzá válhattak. Egy szó átvételét pl. erősen motiválhatja valemilyen sajátos tulajdonság, kapcsolódó képzet stb. Talán vallásos motiváció:
Kreyenbroek, Philip, K. - Some remarks on water and caves in pre-Islamic Iranian religions
The discovery of what is undoubtedly an ancient sanctuary at Vesnave confronts us with aspects of religious life in pre-Islamic and early Islamic Iran that are not widely considered in the academic literature on the subject so far:
– the prominent character of the cult of water in branches of Sasanian Zoroastrianism;
– the role of caves in religious life;
– the existence of aspects of ritual and observance whose existence was at best reluctantly admitted by the Zoroastrian priests who supervised the final redaction (in the 9th and 10th centuries BCE) of the Pahlavi Books, our main sources of information about Zoroastrianism in Sasanian and early Islamic Iran;
– the probable existence of popular cults in Parthian and Sasanian Iran besides the ‘official’ form of Zoroastrianism reflected in the Pahlavi Books. | 
