Latin mecum, tecum, etc.

[Steve Gustafson]

Peter Gray wrote:

> In both cases haitus between vowels is avoided by inserting "r".

I think you're on to something.  I am now convinced, of course, that these
are WGmc in origin rather than Latin calques.  The curious and otherwise
unattested caseforms in where- and there- had me confused.

Since none of these inverted forms seem to have been attested until Early
Middle English at the earliest, it is not beyond the realm of possibility
that the written English forms in  where- and there- represent a writer's
interpretation of a dialect already losing -r in these contexts, or as you
note, an epenthetic /r/ between vowels.  This seems at least to explain the
shapes of the related compounds in German.   Now  **hwafor and **thefor may
not have been possible in Old English, since they probably would regularly
yield the harder to analyse **hwavor and **thevor.  The introduction of a
consonant may have been as needful in early Middle English as it was in
German in these contexts.

--
When as Man's life, the light of human lust
In socket of his early lanthorne burnes,
That all this glory unto ashes must,
And generation to corruption turnes;
Then fond desires that onely feare their end,
Doe vainely wish for life, but to amend.
  --- Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke