ארכיון (arkhion) — archive
Etymology
The word ארכיון traveled to Hebrew in two stages. During the British Mandate, the institution was called אַרְכִיב, a Hebrew adaptation of the English/German Archive, which itself came from Latin archīvum, which in turn was a Latin adaptation of Greek ἀρχεῖον (arkhéion), meaning "a public building" or "a magistrate's office" — from ἀρχή (arkhé), "rule, beginning."
When the State of Israel was founded, the question of naming the national archive arose. In August 1949, acting government secretary Hanna Even-Tov wrote to Hebrew Language Committee president Naphtali Tur-Sinai asking about his opinion on Prime Minister Ben-Gurion's proposed Hebrew name: גַּנְזַךְ — "a place of storage/treasuring of documents." Tur-Sinai objected on several grounds: גנזך appears in the Bible (1 Chronicles 28:11) but is itself a Persian loanword (from גַּנְזָה, "royal treasury"), the Hebrew root ג.נ.ז carries the connotation of concealing or disposing of texts (as in the ritual genizah of worn-out scriptures), and it could not easily generate derived forms like "archival" or "archivist." He proposed כְּמִיסָה instead. Ben-Gurion was unconvinced.
The 1955 Archives Law enshrined גנזך as the official name of Israel's state archive. Other institutions adopted ארכיון — a form attested in late Midrashim — and gradually ארכיב fell out of use. The state archive jealously guarded גנזך's exclusivity: in 1977, State Archivist Paul Abraham Alsberg formally complained to the attorney general when a private consulting firm registered under the name "הגנזך." By 2011, State Archivist Yaakov Lozowick announced internally that the institution would henceforth call itself "ארכיון המדינה" because "almost nobody knows what גנזך means."
Key Quotes
"מר בן-גוריון היה רוצה לשמוע את דעתך על הצעתו והיא: ׳גנזך׳ - מקום גניזה לנירות" — Hanna Even-Tov, letter to Tur-Sinai, August 1949
"פחות או יותר אף אחד לא יודע מה זה גנזך, חוץ מחלק קטן מעובדי משרד ראש הממשלה... ועוד כמה פרופסורים מאובקים" — Yaakov Lozowick, State Archivist, 2011
Timeline
- Ancient Greek: ἀρχεῖον (arkhéion) — "public building/magistrate's office"
- Latin: archīvum — Latin adaptation
- British Mandate: ארכיב enters Hebrew as adaptation of Archive
- August 1949: Ben-Gurion proposes גנזך; Tur-Sinai objects, proposes כמיסה
- 1955: Archives Law passed; גנזך established as official name of State Archive
- Post-1955: Other institutions adopt ארכיון; ארכיב fades
- 1977: State Archivist moves to block private firms from using the name גנזך
- 2011: State Archivist Lozowick announces switch to ארכיון המדינה
- Present: ארכיון dominant in common use; גנזך largely unknown
Related Words
- גַּנְזַךְ — original official Hebrew name for the State Archive; from Persian ganza (royal treasury)
- גְּנִיזָה — ritual storage/disposal of worn scriptures (same root ג.נ.ז)
- גַּנָּז — State Archivist (official title using same root)
- כְּמִיסָה — Tur-Sinai's rejected alternative proposal