2841: Borrowing from the Genitive Form Sep 30, 2024

The Modern Hebrew word for notebook, פנקס (pinkas) is from an Ancient Greek πίναξ (pínax) where not only is the vowel in a different place, but /ks/ sound which in Greek is represented by one sound is here looks as if it is parsed into two. Unlike in English letter X however, or for that matter in Hebrew with the letter צ (ts), where they do not change forms with add suffixes, in Ancient Greek suffixation like applying the genitive singular [possessive case], turning the word into πίνακος (pínakos) will modify the ending of the word. It is possible, if not likely, that the Hebrew came not from the nominative singular [subject case], but from another declination. This sort of thing is extremely unusual—across languages borrowings almost always derive from the nominative form of a noun—but the situation is not entirely unheard of. It is also possible that the word’s vowel position changed only after being adopted into Hebrew via metathesis, but the evidence available does not make this conclusive.