urform

• ur-form

From ur- (“original”) +‎ form.

urform (plural urforms)

1. The (real or idealised) version of a transmissible cultural element, such as a word, language, religion, ideology, folktale, melody, meme, etc., which is taken to be the original form from which all other versions have deviated.

   Synonym: protoform

   • 2003, David M. Hopkin, Soldier and Peasant in French Popular Culture:

     Then by careful comparison they constructed a genealogy, finally deriving the outline of the ur-form, from which all other variants stemmed.

   • 2007, Donald Haase, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales:

     Thus he finally was able to present some suppositions about a folktale's origins: the time and place, as well as the urform (basic or original form).

   • 2010, Rachel Cowgill, David Cooper, Clive Brown, Art and Ideology in European Opera:

     This Ur-form brings together the 'oriental' stasis of a non-Western drone, in the form of various pedal-points ... It maybe too much to argue that the Ur-form, as a hidden version of the oriental, is Djamileh's equivalent to Namouna's ironic […]