“Sand” does occur once in the paq’batlh ({ghobchuq loDnI'pu'}, 2nd verse):

SuvtaH SuvtaH
  qamDu'chaj bIngDaq
  letchoH lam nagh rur

They fought on and on,
  The sand beneath their feet
  Turned hard as rock

Here, Okand used {lam} “dirt” -- which may be a more general term than in English.  As far as I can tell, it’s the only example of {lam} in the paq’batlh.

--
Voragh

On Behalf Of SuStel
On 3/21/2017 1:56 PM, Jeremy Silver wrote:

I too have been having trouble finding a good way to express sand and ash and bribe for example. I think describing ground-up rock confuses people if trying to talk about sand.

Hmm. nagh pullu'pu'bogh is actually a pretty decent substitute for sand.