NEGATIVE U-PREFIX

Amazingly, the Ukrainian words that start with 'U' and that have never had any stable etymology, acquire one if looked at from Kartvelian point of view. To remind: in Kartvelian language the 'U' prefix has negative meaning (absence).

UBOGIY (УБОГИЙ) both in Ukrainian and Russian means wretched, poor, crippled. The official etymology tells us that the root of the word is 'bog' meaning 'wealth'. But the meaning is opposite - poor! What does give us that opposite meaning? Right, the negative prefix 'U-'. What language do we have the negative prefix 'U-' in? Right, in Kartvelian language.

UGOMONIT' (УГОМОНИТЬ) means 'to calm down'. While 'gomon' means 'noise', 'hubbub'. Again, the u-prefix clearly turns the root's meaning into an opposite one.

UPRIAMIY (УПРЯМЫЙ) means 'stubborn' and has the root 'priam' meaning 'straight', for which Dahl also gives meanings of 'right', 'correct'. So, the combination 'u+priam' gives us a meaning of 'non-right', 'wrong'. And 'stubborn' is clearly 'wrong' too. The u-prefix undoubtedly has negative meaning.

UPRUGIY (УПРУГИЙ) has already been addressed and means 'non-frigid', i.e. 'tense'.

UTLIY (УТЛЫЙ) means 'fragile', 'frail' (for example, boat). The root here is 'TL' which seems to be the remnants of 'telo' meaning 'body'. So, 'utliy' (U+TL) can be interpreted as 'un-bodied', 'non-bodiful'. The u-prefix has negative meaning.

UROD (УРОД) means 'ugly person' and comes from the root 'rod-' meaning 'yield' among others. So. 'urod' may be interpreted as 'ill-yielded'. The u-prefix has negative meaning.

UBYTOK (УБЫТОК) means 'loss', 'damage'. The root is 'byt' (to be). So, 'ubytok' should be interpreted as 'un-being'. The u-prefix has negative meaning.

The most interesting seems to be the case of the Ukrainian word UYAVNIY (УЯВНИЙ) which means 'imaginary', 'unreal'. With the u-prefix taken off we are left with the word YAVNIY (ЯВНИЙ) meaning 'evident', 'obvious', 'real'. which is a clear opposition to 'imaginary'. And again we achieve the effect of opposition with the help of u-prefix that has negative (opposite) meaning only in Kartvelian language.

Another remarkable word is OCEAN which is considered to be a derivation from Greek ωκεανός [okeanos] which means... no one knows what, you can check yourselves. It is considered to be a word of no etymology. But few know that in Kartvelian language UKIANE meaning 'ocean' has a very strict Kartvelian composition of U+<ROOT>+E with the help of which we build abstract nouns. So, UKIANE = U+KIAN+E. The interpretation of KIAN is twofold: (1) it can be the same root as in the name of the Georgian village of Kianeti - 'land of kiani', whatever it means; or (2) according to Klimov, 'kian' has a meaning of 'oscillating', 'rippling'. Hence, the word UKIANE literally means 'state of non-oscillating', 'state of non-rippling', 'calmness'. And please remember that when the Europeans saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time, they too called it 'pacific', which closely relates to 'non-rippling', 'calmness'.