Edgar Ghislain Charles Polomé (July 31, 1920 – March 11, 2000) was a Belgian-American philologist and religious studies scholar.

[2] Polomé attended a Dutch-language primary school, and received his secondary education at the French-language Athénée Royal de Koekelberg, where he immersed himself in classical philology and acquired proficiency in Latin, Greek, German and English, graduating as the best in his class.

[2] He would eventually acquire proficiency in a large number of languages, including several Italic (such as French, Italian and Latin), Germanic (such as Dutch, English, German, Swedish, Danish and Gothic), Indo-Iranian (such as Hindi, Sanskrit, Pali, Avestan and Old Persian), Celtic, Baltic and Bantu languages (particularly Swahili), and Greek and Hittite.

Passing his freshman exams with the highest distinction, Polomé was conscripted into the Belgian Armed Forces during the Battle of Belgium.

[5] In 1943, Polomé gained a licenciate (roughly equivalent to a master's degree) in Germanic philology at the University of Louvain.

During this time, Polomé developed a strong interest in the comparative study of religions and cultures, which he would maintain for the rest of his life.

Inspired by the pioneering research of Georges Dumézil, Polomé aimed towards specializing in the comparative study of Germanic religion, but this ambition was shattered by stigma associated with the topic in the aftermath of World War II.

[6] After the end of World War II in Europe, Polomé joined the United States Army as an interpreter in Germany.

Returning to Belgium Polomé re-enrolled at the University of Brussels, completing his PhD degree in Germanic philology in 1949 with the highest distinction.

His PhD thesis was on the laryngeal theory of Indo-European linguistics, and was supervised by Adolphe Van Loey [nl].

During his research for the dissertation, Polomé came in contact with the foremost scholars on Indo-European linguistics of the day, including Dumézil, Julius Pokorny, Émile Benveniste, Jerzy Kuryłowicz and Winfred P.

While working for his PhD, Polomé got involved with the Théonoé group established by Henri Grégoire at the Royal Library of Belgium, where he acquired new perspectives on Germanic religion.

[11] While in Congo, Polomé published a number of works on Swahili; he was interested in the relationship between language and culture, which made him turn to fields such as modern sociolinguistics.

[14] Winfred P. Lehmann then invited him to the University of Texas at Austin, where the absence of Werner Winter gave him the opportunity to teach Hindi, Latin, Hittite and other languages as a visiting professor for one semester.

Notable students on whom Polomé had a strong influence include Joseph C. Salmons and Bridget Drinka, who became prominent scholars in the field themselves.

Questions examined by Polomé in this regard include Celtic-Germanic relations, and the Indo-European components in Germanic languages and culture.

[21] In 1985, Polomé was appointed Christie and Stanley E. Adams Jr. Centennial professor at the College of Liberal Arts at University of Texas at Austin.

It represented the culmination of a lifetime of research on Germanic religion by Polomé, and was intended by him to be an incentive for the publication of a revision of Jan de Vries' monumental Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte.

[21][31] In 1990, Polomé organized Perspectives on the Ancient Indo-European World, which was an international seminar funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.