In contrast to Kluge, there are some arguments that support placing the Alemannic type Anke (cf. Idiotikon I, 341 under Anke) with the lat.-roa. base type ŭnguĕre 'to anoint, to coat'. In Kluge it is stated:

"Anke(n), (replaced by Butter) Sm ‛Butter' per. wobd. (8th century), mhd. anke, ahd. anko. Although the word is only preserved in German, g. *ankwōn m. ‛fat, butter' must be assumed as the continued form of ig. ( weur.) *ongwen- ‛ointment, fat, butter' (with various degrees of ablaut), cf. l. unguen n. ‛fat, ointment', air. imb ‛butter' (*ṇgwen-) of the verbal root ig. *ongw- ‛ointments' in ai. anákti, l. unguere and so forth. So, it originally meant ‛ointment, grease'." (Kluge, 47)

On the one hand, this reveals a plausible connection. On the other hand, however, an improbable etymological conclusion emerges: Kluge interprets the word as an isolated Indo-Germanic relict, although it would be much more logical to attribute this southwestern German (Alemannic) type to Latin-Romanic. The mentioned Latin base with the velar has admittedly been displaced by the variant *ŭngĕre (cf. REWOnline 9069, under ŭngĕre) in the directly neighbouring Romance contact area, as can be seen from the palatalisation of the g in roh. (Surselvic) unscher, eng. uondscher, ita. ungere and others (cf. HWdR, 971). In what is now the French region, however, cognates of lat. ŭnguĕre are predominant (cf. FEW 14, 36f. under unguere). Among them are also forms with clear semantic reference to milk processing, such as ogner 'donner son lait | giving milk' (with change of conjugation class) and ogna 'quantité de lait que donne une vache en une fois | quantity of milk given by a cow at once'. Incidentally, the participle unctum gave rise to the Friulian term for BUTTER ont, lld. onto, vonto (cf. ron. unt). The hereby suggested borrowing from Latin-Romance is phonetically possible and semantically self-evident considering the numerous other romanisms in this onomasiological field. In view of the much wider distribution of the type butyru(m), it is also obvious to see an older type in the designations derived from the verb variants ŭnguĕre, *ŭngĕre, which was later superimposed by butyru(m).