Klarinet Archive - Posting 000115.txt from 2010/05

From: Michael Nichols <mrn.clarinet@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] mozart
Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 17:00:20 -0400

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 12:48 PM, Dan Leeson <dnleeson@-----.net> wrote:
> That all German words using it as a prefix (Urquelle, Urbevoelkerung," etc.)
> point to the earliest of something, it is not outrageous to suggest the
> relationship between the prefix and the oldest city of Ur.

No, it's not outrageous. It just doesn't seem very likely to me.
And, in fact, there are some common German nouns that use the "Ur-"
prefix in a different sense (not as "original"). For instance, the
noun Urlaub, which translates as "vacation from work," is related to
the German verb erlauben (to allow/permit ["allow" is the English
cognate]). The logic behind these words seems to be that "Urlaub" is
when you are allowed ("erlaubt") not to work. This seems to be a
meaning more along the lines of "Ur-" as "out," rather than "Ur-" as
"original" (since permission is something that is "given out.") Same
thing with Urteil--a judgment is something that is handed out.

On the other hand, if, as the Bible says, Abraham went *out* from Ur
and settled in the land of Canaan, then that might still suggest some
connection with the city of Ur.

Still, I just don't know that that story was on the minds of the 1st
millennium Teutonic peoples from whom the "Ur-" prefix arose. It
seems more likely to me that the mental connection between "Ur-" the
prefix and "Ur" the ancient city was made by someone in our own time
(schooled in history as well as modern literary German), possibly as a
mnemonic to aid in learning the language (I certainly had plenty of
them myself when learning German), and somewhere along the way, having
been passed from German student to German student, the mnemonic turned
into etymological folklore.

But I can't back that up, either. :-) Perhaps we'll never know for sure...
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