From: tgpedersen
Message: 63820
Date: 2009-04-15
>Not necessarily. If the Mother Tongue / ur-/ar- language / language of geminates is also Schrijver's language of bird names, the ym- part may be the umlauted (from um- ) u-correspondent of the vanishing prefix a-, from /ã/ ~ /aN/ ~ /n,W./.
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > >
> > > 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
> >
>
> One more thought comes to mind.
>
> Ympyrä - hoop, can be compared with
> pyöreä - round, sperical
>
> So it looks like the /ym/ /um/ part is just a prepositional element
> meaning in(side).
> You may deserve a second star.Oh goody! Maybe I will need to buy a new book.