†polo

Melchert 1993d:84 cautiously entertained the possibility that polo in E.Me 8b is the Carian cognate of the Hittite word pulla-, allegedly meaning ‘son’ according to Hoffmann 1992a. While Hajnal 1995b:20, Hajnal 1997a:200 with n. 14 (here with phonological concerns), Hajnal 1998a:85 with n. 13 (here he had solved the concerns) accepted this idea, Adiego 2007a:401 called it “very speculative”, but without arguments. However, philological problems on both the Carian and the Hittite side exclude this idea. The Hittite word is preceded by the logogram É, i.e., pulla- refers to a building or a part of it, but Hoffmann’s equation with É DUMU(.MEŠ) is arbitrary and obviously etymologically (such as, e.g., Latin pullus ‘young (of animals)’) motivated (CHD s.v. and HED P:118, note that the homonymous pulla- is not helpful either, since it refers to a vessel). On the Carian side, polo is coordinated with the personal name Paraeym by the conjunction sb ‘and’ and thus, it is probably a personal name (Adiego 2007a:401). Although as a personal name it may go back to a substantive, even to a substantive meaning ‘son’ (although this seems to be mno, see s.v.) or ‘child’, there is no evidence for this in the case of Polo and, as we could see, there is no Anatolian comparandum for this at the moment either.

[Zs.S.]