“but for an actual first-language Yiddish speaker it would be quite odd to spell it in a way that it too similar to “nohr/nur” (“only”) ”
Ive been trying to think of an example here is one: what does ??? mean?
Without context (or sticking in a nekuda) you dont know. Here are two contexts to help:
??? ??? ????? (travel)
??? ??? ???? ????? ??? ?? ??? (before)
(of course the word ??? is technically Hebrew but like the word ??? it doesnt contain any yiddish vowels so it is left alone)