>>Btw, a question for the anglophone majority here: is there a word in English which begins with a "u" and has it pronounced as u? Not as uh as in under, not as yoo as in universe, but as u as in butcher, lubricate?
>
>urchin (not exactly but fairly close).

Nope, that's with +r to it, and then any vowel followed by it behaves differently than it would without the r. A separate list (and no rule again).