Reconstruction:Proto-West Germanic/amaʀā

This Proto-West Germanic entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Proto-West Germanic

Alternative forms

• *amaʀō m

Etymology

Kroonen links *amslā (“blackbird”), which is either from Proto-Indo-European *h₂em(-)s- (“blackbird”) or from a Central European substrate language; if the former, the stem *amaʀ- could reflect the unsuffixed original *h₂ém-ōs ~ *h₂m-és-.

Noun

*amaʀā f

1. blackbird
2. yellowhammer

Inflection

ōn-stem
	Singular
Nominative	*amaʀā
Genitive	*amaʀōn
	Singular	Plural
Nominative	*amaʀā	*amaʀōn
Accusative	*amaʀōn	*amaʀōn
Genitive	*amaʀōn	*amaʀōnō
Dative	*amaʀōn	*amaʀōm, *amaʀum
Instrumental	*amaʀōn	*amaʀōm, *amaʀum

Descendants

• Old English: amore
  • Middle English: *amere, *amre, *ambre
    • English: ammer
    • ⇒ Middle English: *yelwamre, *yelambre, *yelwambre
      • ⇒ English: yelambre, yelamber, yellowhammer
• Old Saxon: amaro
• Old High German: amara, amaro, amero
  • Middle High German: amer
    • German: Ammer

Further reading

• Kroonen, Guus (2013) “*amazan-”, in Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 11), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 24