The twelve names from 827 to 957 with umlaut of OHG /u/, /ō/ and /ū/ (ten place names, one river name and one brook name) which are dealt with in the article prove that umlaut of vowels other than OHG /a/ existed long before the end of the 10th century (Notker). Nine of these names are found in original documents, among them the two oldest and most important, the place names Puirron 827 and Puillacha 828. Both testify to the existence of the phonemes /
/ and /ü/ in Old High German as early as the third decade of the 9th century. A detailed investigation of the oldest names together with the fact that the primary umlaut of /a/ is documented from around 750 leads to the conclusion that in Old High German in the 8th century, particularly in the first half, a process of palatalization of all velar vowels and diphthongs before i, ī, j in the following syllable was in progress.
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