خنوص

Where it comes from

Ultimately derived from Proto-Afroasiatic *ḫunʒ(-ir)- (“pig, boar, porcupine; calf, piglet”) from whence Arabic خِنْزِير (ḵinzīr, “pig, swine”) and Arabic خُنْس (ḵuns, “gazelles, wild cows”) is also derived; inherited natively or semantically reinforced from a Berber borrowing as also parallelly passed into Maltese gendus, compare the related Kabyle ⴰⴳⴻⵏⴷⵓⵣ (agenduz, “calf, young animal”), though such a form is in Semitic only found in Classical Syriac ܚܰܢܽܘܨܳܐ (ḥannūṣā, “piglet”) and Ugaritic [Cuneiform needed] (ḫe-en-ni-ṣu /⁠ḫinnīṣu, ḫannīṣu⁠/, “piglet”), which combined with the predominating presence of the Arabic word in the Levant and the otherwise absence of the measure save for borrowings suggests an Aramaic substrate.