פסנתר (psanter) — piano

Etymology

The piano entered Hebrew with a name that had already traveled from ancient Greece through Aramaic scripture before being misread into modern utility. Today everyone knows פסנתר, but the word won only after defeating four rivals over half a century of Hebrew revival competition.

The first Hebrew writers in the 19th century who needed to refer to a piano simply used loan-adaptations of the Italian piano — writing פיאנא or פיאנו, abbreviations of the original Italian name pianoforte (literally "soft-loud," because unlike the harpsichord, the piano allows dynamic control of volume). Some writers preferred to recycle a biblical instrument name. HaMelits in 1862 used עוגב (a biblical instrument appearing four times: Genesis, Psalms, and twice in Job). The Septuagint had translated ugav as organon in Psalms — hence the German Orgel, the English organ, and Hebrew's modern use of עוגב for pipe organ — making the parallel plausible even if the instruments are completely different. By 1871 the word נבל (a biblical harp or lyre, Isaiah 5:12 etc.) was also competing in newspapers like HaMagid, HaMelits, and HaTsofira.

The word פסנתר apparently emerged at Rishon LeZion around 1885. Berta Feinberg, a BILU pioneer who owned the only piano in the settlement and was known for her deep knowledge of the Bible, is credited with the coinage. She likely knew Daniel 3, the passage describing Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah being thrown into a furnace when they refuse to bow before Nebuchadnezzar's idol at the sound of various instruments: "...קַרְנָא מַשְׁרוֹקִיתָא קַתְרוֹס סַבְּכָא פְּסַנְתֵּרִין סוּמְפֹּנְיָה..." The Aramaic psanterín in Daniel 3 is not actually Aramaic at all — it is borrowed from the Greek psalterion, a plucked string instrument. The Greek word ends in -on, a singular suffix; but the same ending looks like the Aramaic/Hebrew plural suffix -in (like the Hebrew -im). The coiner therefore stripped the apparent plural ending to create a singular: פסנתר. From 1889 onward, פסנתר began to displace its rivals in the press and in literature.

But the battle was not over. In December 1906, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda threw his weight behind his own candidate. His wife Hemda launched a music column in their newspaper HaHashkafa, opening with a concert review — using the word piano. Ben-Yehuda apparently objected to the foreign word and by the following issue had introduced מכושית (from כושית, meaning "instrument"), which he defined as "piano and clavier." Ben-Yehuda's newspapers — HaHashkafa, HaTsvi, and later his son Itamar's Davar HaYom — stubbornly used מכושית even into the 1930s when everyone else had moved to פסנתר. When Davar HaYom ceased publication, מכושית vanished completely and has never been heard from since.

Key Quotes

"בְּעִדָּנָא דִּי תִשְׁמְעוּן קָל קַרְנָא... פְּסַנְתֵּרִין סוּמְפֹּנְיָה... תִּפְּלוּן וְתִסְגְּדוּן לְצֶלֶם דַּהֲבָא" — דניאל ג'

"ביום הזה לא יבשת, הפסנתרינים הם שאמרו כן לסגוד." — (interpretation of the passage)

Timeline

• Biblical-era Greek: psalterion used for a harp-like instrument
• Talmudic era: Greek psalterion borrowed into Aramaic as psanterín (plural form), appearing in the Aramaic sections of Daniel 3
• 1862: HaMelits uses עוגב (with the gloss "פיאנא") as the Hebrew word for piano
• 1870s: עוגב, נבל, and פיאנא/פיאנו all used in Hebrew press simultaneously
• 1871: First documented use of נבל for piano (Mendel Lieberman's ad)
• c. 1885: פסנתר coined at Rishon LeZion, attributed to Berta Feinberg
• 1889: פסנתר begins appearing in the Hebrew press and literature
• December 1906: Ben-Yehuda introduces מכושית in HaHashkafa
• 1930s: Ben-Yehuda's newspapers still using מכושית; rest of Hebrew world uses פסנתר
• Closure of Davar HaYom: מכושית disappears; פסנתר is the sole Hebrew word for piano

Related Words

• עוגב — pipe organ; originally proposed as Hebrew for piano; the Septuagint translated the biblical instrument name this way
• נבל — harp/lyre; another failed candidate for piano
• מכושית — Ben-Yehuda's proposed alternative; never caught on; extinct
• פיאנו — the Italian loanword (still used informally in Israeli speech)
• פסלטריון — the Greek psalterion, the distant ancestor of the word