Reconstruction:Proto-Italic/poplos

This Proto-Italic entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Origin unknown. Whatmough compares the Etruscan toponym 𐌐𐌖𐌐𐌋𐌖𐌍𐌀 (pupluna), though this does not provide much further insight. A connection to *plēō (“to fill”), via a reduplicated form *po-plh₁-o-s is phonetically possible, albeit strange and semantically unclear,^[1] but compare Proto-Germanic *fulką (possibly) and Ancient Greek πλῆθος (plêthos) from this root.

*poplos m

1. army

• Old Latin: poplos, poplus, populus
  • Latin: populus (see there for further descendants)
• Umbrian: 𐌐𐌖𐌐𐌋𐌖𐌌 (puplum) and poplom (nom. sg.), 𐌐𐌖𐌐𐌋𐌖 (puplu) and poplo (acc. sg.), popler (gen. sg.), pople (dat., loc. sg.), poplu (abl. sg.)
  • ⇒ Umbrian: 𐌐𐌖𐌐𐌋𐌖𐌐𐌄𐌓 (pupluper) and popluper ('able-bodied citizens', abl. sg.)

• Jürgen Untermann, Wörterbuch des Oskisch-Umbrischen, 3rd volume of Handbuch der italischen Dialekte, 2000, p. 610
• “people”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.