 For the old loans, as well as uncontroversial ones from Proto-Baltic and Proto-Germanic, it is more the rule than the exception that only the stem is borrowed, without any case-endings.Proto-Uralic "*nimi-" has been explained according to sound laws governing substitutions in borrowings (Koivulehto 1999), on the assumption that the original was a zero-grade oblique stem PIE "*(H)nmen-" as attested in later Balto-Slavic "*inmen-" and Proto-Celtic "*anmen-".Proto-Uralic "*weti-" could be a loan from the PIE oblique "e"-grade form for 'water' or from an indirectly attested cognate root noun "*wed-".