Hittite Menahhanda‪.‬

The Hittite preverb or postposition menahhanda 'opposite, against, vis-a-vis, facing, toward', sometimes spelled Sumerographically as IGI-an-da, is well attested from OS on. Examples are now readily available in CHD (L-N: 274-88) and HED (6: 145-46); (1) here is a selection: The word menahhanda has traditionally been compared with menali- n. (pl. tant.), mena-c. 'face, cheek", and this comparison is hard to deny. (2) The second part of menahhanda is, however, problematic. The word has been parsed into mena and hant-. The latter is a frequent Hittite word meaning 'forehead, front' and the usual assumption has been that menahhanda is a compound of two nouns in allative case, 'face' and 'forehead'. (3)