*uppara-

The Luwian lexeme uppara- is drawn from a compounded personal name ^mup-pa-ra-A.A- (/-muwa-/) (Laroche 1966b:197, Orozco 2017a:118) “having a upara might”. It has been connected with Aw. upara- and Germ. ober ‘upper’ and reconstructed as PIE *upero- (Melchert 2013c:44), i.e. CLuw. *uppara- ‘superior (?)’. However plausible the etymology and semantic assignment of *uppara- is, the lack of attestation of the actual lexeme hinders any verification. Furthermore, Hutter 2020a:514 suggests seeing instead a divine name in uppara-muwa-, which would mean ‘having the strength of (the deity) Up(pa)ra’, which would be independently attested, i.e. ^Dup-ra-aš (KBo 70.109 iv 32’). No stand is taken here, as it is all very much speculative. For a matching personal name in Greek transmission, see Houwink ten Cate 1961a:162-164, Zgusta 1963a:479, Réveilhac 2023a:199.

[D.S.]