אֲלֻנְקָה (Alunka) — stretcher

Etymology

In the late 19th century, Hebrew writers struggled to find a specific word for "stretcher," as the device was not native to ancient Israel. They relied on descriptive phrases such as mitat barzel ("iron bed"), mot ("pole"), or mita nesua ("carried bed"). The modern term was born out of a combination of scholarly revival and a translation error.

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda first revived the word as alanka (אֲלַנְקָה) in 1896 while translating Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. He based it on the rare Talmudic Aramaic word alunki (אלונקי), which referred to a sedan chair or palanquin carried on shoulders. Modern linguists, such as Shaul Shaked, suggest the Aramaic term originated from an unattested Persian word ulnak, derived from the Old Persian ardba-na-ka, meaning "that which is carried."

The shift from "palanquin" to "stretcher" occurred in 1908. Author Yosef Haim Brenner used alanka to mean a military medical stretcher in his story "One Year." Brenner likely consulted Abraham Kahana's Russian-Hebrew dictionary (1907), where the Russian word nosilki (which can mean both palanquin and stretcher) was translated using Ben-Yehuda's alanka. Brenner adopted the word for the medical context, and it quickly took root.

By 1914, the pronunciation shifted from alanka to the modern alunka. This change is attributed to the lexicographer Yehuda Gur, who included the vocalization alunka (אַלֻּנְקָה) in his dictionary. Today, the word is a staple of Israeli military culture, famously appearing in the idiom "getting under the stretcher" (nichnas tachat ha'alunka), signifying shared burden and leadership.

Key Quotes

"בעונג מיוחד היה נוטל את האַלנקה והולך אל 'השורות האחרונות', שם היה מחטט בכיבים ומשוחח את החיילים על מהות העבודה בצבא." — יוסף חיים ברנר, 'שנה אחת', 1908

"ובמרכז הלכו שנים עשר רואי פני אפיפיור של המשגעים ונשאו על כתפותיהם אֲלַנְקָה מלאה נרות." — אליעזר בן־יהודה (תרגום ויקטור הוגו), 'הצבי', 1896

"הבקשה שבקש, בשעה ששכב פצוע ע״ג האלונקה." — מנחם פוזננסקי (תרגום טולסטוי), 'הפועל הצעיר', 1914

Timeline

• 4th Century: The term alunki appears in the Babylonian Talmud (Beitza 22b) describing a chair carried on poles.
• 1896: Eliezer Ben-Yehuda revives the word as alanka for "palanquin" in his translation of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.
• 1907: Abraham Kahana's Russian-Hebrew dictionary lists alanka as the translation for nosilki.
• 1908: Yosef Haim Brenner uses alanka to mean "stretcher" in his story "One Year."
• 1914: The form alunka (with the 'u' vowel) becomes standard in Menachem Poznansky's translation of Tolstoy.
• 2013: The metaphor "getting under the stretcher" enters frequent Israeli political discourse.

Related Words

• אפריון (Afiryon) — palanquin or sedan chair (the original sense of alunki).
• סַבָּל (Sabal) — porter (the role associated with carrying such devices).
• מִטָּה (Mitta) — bed (the base of many early descriptive terms for stretchers).