How Do You Spell Hanakkuh?

No, in answer to your question, I am not Jewish. Not that I would mind if I was, but I am not, and I don’t expect to convert at this late stage of life.

Earlier this week a conversation started over the spelling of the Jewish Hanukkah (sp?). The original dialog included a Jew who wished us all a Merry Xmas and himself a Happy Chanukah.

I sent back a query as to how the Jewish Festival of Lights (this year it starts at sunset on December 20 and ends at sunset on December 28) should be spelled. I’ve seen it spelled several different ways, as I’m sure you have.

One of the other recipients of my group email responded with a link to Sixteen Ways to Spell Hanukkah. That link spurred my curiosity and I read the column along with some posted comments.

I will give the credit for the article to its author, Joe Maller, but I will summarize it for you as to the parts I wish to use. The link is available by clicking on his title in case you want to read it.

The sixteen accepted ways to spell “the word” are: Chanukah, Hanukah, Hannukah, Chanuka, Chanukkah, Hanuka, Channukah, Chanukka, Hanukka, Hannuka, Hannukkah, Channuka, Xanuka, Hannukka, Channukkah, channukka and Chanuqa.

I must say that through research I found 5 more ways to spell “the word”, but I won’t spell them now. I will give you the four phonetic variations, which were used above:
· The word starts with “H” or “CH”
· The second consonant is “nn” or “n”
· The third consonant is “kk” or “k”
· The word ends with “a” or “ah”

Mr. Maller also provides the number of Google “hits” that were tried during the year 2011, and there are literally millions of them. I don’t profess to know how Google keeps track of these things, or how Mr. Maller had access to the numbers.

The “preferred” spelling at the Library of Congress in Washington is Hanukkah. My Jewish friend with whom the discourse started spells it Chanukah, and the Hebrew spelling—in case you’re interested—is חֲנֻכָּה.

A big reason that Jewish words are spelled differently in our translation is the fact that Jews love to argue. And they aren’t necessarily argumentative; they consider it a good mental exercise. What better to argue over than the spelling of a word? It’s harmless, and you know that if you put two Jews together and ask them how to spell Hanukkah, you’ll get twenty minutes of debate, 5 different spellings and each of them will go away with the same spelling they started with, discarding any others because each thinks his is the “right one” and shaking their heads to cool their brains after all that exercise.

Now that you and I know how to spell “the word”, I also found a cute video in one of the posts on Mr. Maller’s article. If you have a few minutes do watch it.

http://vimeo.com/8264593

And before I forget, I want to wish you a Merry Christmas or a Happy Hanukkah (sp?)