Hi, Fd is right and throughout the history of the English language, new prepositions have come into use, old ones fallen out of use, and the meaning of existing prepositions has changed.

Most english prepositions relate back to Old English, which is much like old German. The two languages were very close at one point. What you are looking for is a study in etymology - the study of word origins. Whole books have been written on this subject. One place you could go is www.m-w.com - a dictionary site. Besides definitions, it gives a short description of the origin of each word. One thing you will find is that the prepositions were not formed at one time. They all have different origins, but mostly from the same base language.