Hungarian Historical Phonology nyír
''nyír 'Birke'
First attestation/Old Hungarian data
[coming]
Important dialectal forms
[coming]
Uralic/Ugric/Pre-Hungarian reconstruction
(Obsolete:)
UEW: PUg, ? PU *ńȣ̈rɜ (ńȣrɜ, ńȣrkɜ) 'twig, sprout, shoot; Rute, junger Schößling'
Status of the Ugric etymology
Regular cognates, inheritance from PU
Loan etymology
None suggested
Cognates suggested in earlier research
See UEW and the commentary below
Commentary
UEW connects Hungarian word nyír 'birch' (usually in the compound nyírfa) with words denoting 'twig' in various Uralic languags but notes that only the relations between the suggested Ugric cognates are regular. The word nyír has also denoted 'Sumpf, feuchtes Grassland' (EWUng) and it is noted by EWUng that this word possibly belongs together with nyirkos 'wet', nyirok 'moisture'. Aikio (2006: 20–21; 2015: 58) connects nyirok and nyirkos with Proto-Uralic *ńi̮ri 'weak, soft'. Zhivlov (2014: 135-136) connects Hungarian nyír 'frog (in horse hoof)' with nyirkos and Proto-Uralic *ńi̮ri. In Aikio's (2015: 58) word list, also Hungarian nyír is found under the cognates of *ńi̮ri, *ńi̮r-ka 'cartiledge' but without a gloss.
If the meaning 'birch' is secondary (from 'weak, flexible'), the word nyír 'birch' can probably be connected with nyír 'frog (in horse hoof)' with nyirkos and nyirok, nyirkos. However, for the word nyír, oblique stem with both palatal and velar vocalism is attested (see EWUng), making the issue more complicated. There are examples of secondary palatal stems in word having Proto-Hungarian *i̮, so the palatal stem could have arisen secondarily.
If nyír goes back to *ńi̮ri , the Ob-Ugric cognates listed in the UEW (Mansi TJ ńär 'Rohr, Rute, Zweig', Khanty V ńĕrəm 'Rute, Zweig, dünne Weide') cannot belong here.
Conclusion
Hungarian nyír is probably of Proto-Uralic origin and unrelated to the Ob-Ugric cognates suggested in the UEW.
References
Aikio 2006: 20–21
Aikio 2015: 58
EWUng: 1043, s.v. nyír2
UEW s.v. ńȣ̈rɜ (ńȣrɜ, ńȣrkɜ): Proto-Ugric, ? Proto-Uralic Uralonet
Zhivlov 2014: 135–136