Why doesn't the apostrophe in "who's" also indicate the possessive? Did it ever? If so, why and when did it change to "whose"?

by [deleted]

[deleted]

XenophonTheAthenian

You've got it backwards, "whose" is derived from the old genitive case of the interrogative pronoun, eventually going back to Proto-Germanic. "Who's" is a contraction of "who is," in the nominative. The two have nothing to do with each other, except that both are interrogatives.