Proto-Uralic *jäwxrä 'lake', Lithuanian jáura 'marshland', Latvian: jūra 'sea'

Proto-Uralic *jäwrä 'lake' looks enough like Lithuanian jáura 'marshland', Latvian jūra 'sea', Armenian ǰur 'water', etc., that a loan from IE to PU has been proposed. I question why they would borrow this & PU *wete < PIE *wodor- 'water', etc. Also, the timing is odd since it might have been *jäwxrä. Balto-Slavic, if the source, already turned *H into another sound (likely a glottal stop). From https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Balto-Slavic/j%C3%A1u%CB%80r%C4%81%CB%80 :

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Etymology

Probably a borrowing either from Proto-Balto-Slavic *jáuˀrāˀ (compare Lithuanian jáura (“marshland, bog”)), or from earlier Proto-Indo-European *yewHr-. Found only within the traditional Finno-Volgaic group. The word may have replaced *towe, reflected in the more Eastern languages.

Reconstruction

Rahkonen (2011) suggests that several hydronyms in central Russia along the upper Volga and beginning with the formants Яхр-, Ягр- or ending with -хра, -хро (e.g. Яхрома, Ягренево; see Ahlqvist (2006) for a survey) point to a more original form *jäkrä or *jäxrä, loaned already before the loss of the laryngeal from the Indo-European original. No explicit evidence for such a form is found in the direct descendants, however.

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The problem with this being a loan is that PIE *H, even if *x, would not become *x in PU unless it already had a phoneme *x. The disputed PU *x, if real, would help show an IE origin for all words with *-x-, like PIE *gloH3k(h)iH2 > *kläxxe > PU *käxle ‘tongue’ ( https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoricalLinguistics/comments/1qzyv2x/pu_vx_finnic_long_vowels_and_samoyed_full_vowel/ ). Also, with another word with PIE *-H- actually having loans with -x-, it would establish this type of relation with no room for reasonable doubt.

Also, note that the Baltic jáura & jūra come from PIE *yeuH3r-aH2- & *yuH3r-aH2-, displaying typical IE ablaut. However, Uralic also might have had 2 forms if *jäwxrä 'lake' & *jäwxrä 'lake' & *jöxrä 'deep (place (in the water?))' existed, it might require both forms to be loaned (if they were indeed loans). The details of whether *jörä, *jöxrä, *jöwxrä are hard to know, since most of these would be unique. From https://www.academia.edu/145374471 :

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PU *jäwrä ~ *jäwərä ? ‘deep place’

- nowadays usually reconstructed as *jäwrä with cognates in Saami, Finnic, Mordvin and Mari, e.g. SaaN jávri, Fi järvi, MdE eŕke, MariE jer, W jär ‘lake’

- Wichmann (1902: 165) originally included KomiZ jir, J jɵr ‘deep place’ as well as Samoyed cognates meaning ‘deep, depth’ to the cognate set (below an excerpt from Samojedischer Wortschatz where the word was reconstructed as *jorä, nowadays *jörä is reconstructed by Aikio and Kaheinen

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- apparently the Gleichsetzung proposed by Wichmann has recently been rehabilitated by Ante Aikio in an unspecified discussion forum (Jakob 2023: 87)

- the PU word for ‘lake’ in all likelihood was *tuwə > e.g. Komi Udm ti̮, Hu tó etc. found in Permic, Hungarian, Khanty, Mansi and Samoyed so the meaning ‘lake’ found from Saami to Mari could be a semantic innovation

- the vocalism of the supposed Permic cognate does not fit the reconstruction *jäwrä, one would expect PU *ä-ä to yield KomiZ e̮ ~ Udm e, o, instead Komi seems to point to PU *ä-ə (> KomiZ i̮, J ɵ ~ Udm i̮, in a palatal environment fronting from i̮ to i does happen quite often)

- the Permic vocalism could be derived from the non-canonical trisyllabic form *jäwərä

- it is perhaps not necessary to reconstruct the trisyllabic form back to Proto-Uralic as the Permic vocalism could also be the result of a more recent schwa epenthesis, the finer points of which are yet to be determined

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So, if *yeuH3r-aH2- > *yewxra: > PU *jäwxrä, why would *yuH3r-aH2- > *jwöxrä or *jöwxrä? Details would be hard to know if isolated in Uralic, but since most of these changes also appear in IE, a reason is clear. Some IE had H-breaking (maybe dependent on accent); compare related *yuH3m-aH2- 'mix, fermentation, soup' > *yu:ma: > G. zū́mē \ ζῡ́μη 'leaven', *yuH3mo- 'soup' > *ywoHmo- > G. zōmós \ ζωμός 'soup or sauce to eat with meat or fish'. It is hard to believe that the root *yuH3- shows H-breaking within IE, also within PU, and yet it is a loan. Why would IE loan 'lake', such a general word to PU, let alone 'water', etc.? Why would Baltic, if the source, loan both its forms if this requires an IE-type change within PU?

It is not only 'water', but 'fire'. PU *päjwä 'fire / heat / sun' & PIE *paH2wr̥ ‘fire’ are quite close to each other, in that unrelated words for 'fire' with p-, -w-, and ä vs. a are close enough to look into. With *wete & *wodor- showing such a similar type of match, both without -r in PU, it becomes urgent. Also, there are different IE sources :

*paH2wr̥ ‘fire’ > H. pahhu(wa)r

*puH2ōr > *puār > *pwār > TA por, TB puwar ‘fire’

*puH2ōn > *puōn > Gmc. *fwōn > Go. fōn ‘fire’

If *wete, *jäwrä, *päjwä are ALL loans, which IE branch would be the source? Not to mention many other proposed loans, like 'bee', 'honey', etc. No known branch, no reasonable timing, can fit the loan theory. If *wodor- > *wete, it would seem that *-r > *-j (for *wo & *ow, see https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoricalLinguistics/comments/1r0viz9/uralic_kiwe%C3%B0_kewe%C3%B0_kewerke/ ). If so, *wodor > *wodoj > *wedej > *wete, or similar. To match this, if *paH2wr̥ > *paxwər > *paxwaj > *pajwax > *päjwä, it would help show that the change *-r did take place, since met. of *-x-j > *-j-x happened before it was eliminated. The reason for this might be the many other cases of PU *-jw-, *-jC- (which might show it was a favored cluster), or if PIE *-aH2- > PU *-ax in feminine words, it would turn its odd paradigm into a common PU one.