You Say "Chanukah," I Say "Hanukkah"

“What a happy Hanukkah and Birthday Family Night,” I posted on my Facebook wall as I was contentedly basking in the afterglow of celebrating the holiday and my husband’s birthday with my son and his girlfriend.

I thought that this was an entirely innocuous post, not like the one I posted a few days later in horrified exasperation demanding that we all band together to finally do something about enacting some sensible gun control laws in this country.  I really didn’t expect any controversy. 

Nonetheless, one Friend took me to task on my use of “Hanukkah,” saying “Now, your husband says ‘Chanukah.’”

I pointed out that either is correct, to which she responded that she knew that but that my husband carries more weight, "figuratively."

Really, I thought?  Why is that?  Because he is a good speller?  You know, while I might not be able to type to save my life, I am also an excellent speller.  If you don’t believe me ask my two former classmates who used to correct my spelling papers in junior high. No, seriously, we had dinner with one of them a few weeks ago and we were reminiscing about that.

Oh, and not that it matters, but I would like to point out that my husband literally carries more weight than me too.  For heaven’s sake, he’s got 7 or 8 inches on me, I should hope he would weigh a few more pounds than I do.

Oh…wait a minute…maybe she thought he would know how to spell Hanukkah/Chanukah because he’s Jewish, and it is a Jewish holiday.  Well, transliterating Hebrew into English can be quite a challenge, one that can result in a number of debates over spelling.

The best explanation I could find is from the Lindenhurst Patch, which tells us that a quick Google search turns up 15 different spellings, and that Americans have come up with several variations to transliterate the Hebrew word to English, mostly depending on whether a person chooses to start with an “H” or “Ch” and the number of times “N” or “K” appears.  It goes on to say that many American Jews have grown up spelling it with the “Ch” form because it represents the phoneme that begins the word that does not exist in American English, while the Library of Congress and the Associated Press spell it “Hanukkah.”  (for more on this and other fun facts about the holiday, check out http://lindenhurst.patch.com/articles/is-it-chanukah-or-is-it-hanukkah).

As he is very much an American Jew with a knack for pronouncing that old-world guttural “ch” sound, my husband prefers “Chanukah.”  As for me, if “Hanukkah” is good enough for the Library of Congress, it’s good enough for me.  Besides it just seems the more natural spelling to represent the way I pronounce it, with that all-American “H” sound.

So here we have one of those most happy situations where we are both right, even though we disagree.  Of course, we absolutely agree that Hanukkah, or Chanukah (if you prefer) is a perfectly wonderful holiday with special meaning to us that we love celebrating together.

He says "Chanukah" and I say "Hanukkah" but we're keeping the whole thing on.