B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

Ugaritic has three grammatical cases corresponding to: nominative, genitive, and accusative.

Nominative : ו , אתו
Genitive : י, אתי
Accusative : א , אתא

This language is considered the predecessor of Ancient Hebrew, a language that doesn't have declension of nouns, so they were abandoned, probably due to with the adoption of the Phoenician script. Case-endings also carry gender.

ים "Sea" as no case endings so how is gender determined? According to Strong's, it is masculine, but that is not the case, when written with the original case endings, it is feminine.

(Nom) ימאתו "yamathu"
(Gen) ימאתי "yamathi"
(Acc) ימאתא "yamatha"

The Greek word is feminine and lacks an etymology and there is no PIE root, but in fact came from the above words. ימאתא> θάλασσα.

In the phrase "House of Bread", house is nominative and bread is genitive but written בית־לחם and with the case endings, ביתו לחםי cf. vīcus pānis (Lt.)

אל "God" was originally written יל

(Nom) ילו
(Gen) ילי
(Acc) ילא

אל translate θεός, originally θεύς and in Cretan & Laconian, θιός & σιός, the ς ending is prosthetic and absent in Mycenaean, thus the original nominative form is θι-υ ( ילו > ליו > θιυ). "L" is absent in Mycenaean.

The dative case ending is present in Biblical Hebrew. (-ל > δε > ה-)
Genesis 11:31 - ארצה כנע 'to the land of Canaan'
1 Kings 10:2 - ירושלמה 'to Jerusalem'

ארצה = ἔρασδε "to earth" (לארץ)

These words are the same, but ἔ drops out as a vowel and ρ & α switch places.

ἔρας > ρας > αρς > ארץ > αץ < ץα > γα > γῆ (Morphology)

Lee Mcgee says

ים "Sea" as no case endings so how is gender determined? According to Strong's, it is masculine, but that is not the case, when written with the original case endings, it is feminine.

(Nom) ימאתו "yamathu"
(Gen) ימאתי "yamathi"
(Acc) ימאתא "yamatha"

Here it is in Hebrew:
יַמָּה = ים-היא, 'lake, inland sea'.
יַמָּתִי = ים-את-אני, 'my lake', with the היא of יַמָּה being replaced by את
יַמָּתִי = ים-את-היא, 'pertaining (היא) to a lake'
יַמָּתְךָ = ים-את-אכה, 'your lake'
יַמָּתָהּ = ים-את-היא, 'her lake'

Isaac Fried, Boston University

That is not the word for a Lake (Fresh water), the word is אגם and ים is the Sea (Salt water), the ancients obviously knew the difference.

"He" in Ugarit is הו, so in Genesis 12:17, ביתו becomes ביתא הוי and similar to the Latin, vīcum eius, the pronouns themselves have case-endings, in this case, eius/הוי is genitive. (His Genitive).

משל "rule"
Nom - משלו (Basileu)
Gen - משלי (Basileoi)
Acc- משלא (Basilea)

There is much more to this word, since "Basileu" originally meant 'Viceroy (in place of a king) and distinct from a מלך "King", the clue is the word "Viceroy", that is vice+roy which is מלך-הפך. פך(Vice)+מלך(Roy).

שלט, משל, בשל < בשלך < בכלך < בכמלך < פכמלך βασιλεύς
- Daniel 2:48 - Viceroy (שלט) over the whole province of Babylon

Many words of unknown origins are getting solved.

Genesis 2:15 - ויקח יהוה את־האדם וינחהו בגן־עדן "god took the man and put him into the garden"

יהוה "god" (Nominative)
את־האדם "the man" (Accusative)
־הו "him" (Accusative)
בגן־עדן "garden" (Dative)

בגן־עדן is a non-inflected dative unaccompanied by a preposition.
־הו is the same as Latin "eum" but with a terminal m (produced by the "ו" as a labial)

הארץ (ἃ γἃ) (terra)
את־הארץ (τάν γάν) (terram)
לארץ (τᾷ γᾷ) (terrae)

Lee Mcgee says

Many words of unknown origins are getting solved.

You mean Hebrew or Greek words? I am sorry, but I have not seen yet one Hebrew word of "unknown origin" being "solved" here.
Is it of any interest to Hebrew that Viceroy = Vice-roy is the son (fils in French) of the king? Are you saying that Basileu = Basile-u is with the Hebrew ending הוּא?

Isaac Fried, Boston University