From: Peter P
Message: 63815
Date: 2009-04-15
>One more thought comes to mind.
>
> >
> > The rules of vowel harmony are triggered by the first vowel. There
> > is no backwards vowel harmony.
> >
> > I think you would like to make the case that u/y umlaut is rare and
> > possibly predates FU in Northern Europe.
>
> Yes.
> OE does have umlauted ymb, ymbe (cf. OHG umbi), but nothing more complicated (eg. with suffixes), it seems
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/63807
>
> > I can't think of another
> > example at a beginning of a word. There aren't that many words
> > that begin with /y/ in Finnish /ü/ in Estonian anyway.
>
> My little Estonian-Danish dictionary says
> umbes "approximately"
> umbne "enclosure"
> ümber "around, about"
> ümbrus "surrounding"
>
> which sounds native enough. Of course you never know what the language purists might have come up with.
>
> > So what's needed is evidence. If it were easy to come by the
> > authors of etymological dictionaries could take a less conservative
> > stance in classifying the 5 words you identified. None seem to
> > have a clear
> > etymology.
> >
> > Peter P
> >
>
> Torsten
>