The Jewish Festival of Lights is an eight-day celebration that commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple of Jerusalem. It is one of the most popular holidays in Judaism and is marked by the lighting of the menorah. For many English speakers, the festival is also known for confusion over the spelling of its name: Is it Hanukkah or Chanukah? The answer is that both are considered correct, though Hanukkah is the most widely used spelling, while Chanukah is more traditional. In addition, more than 20 other variations are recorded. Why so many spellings? Transliteration.
Hebrew does not use the Latin alphabet, which is the standard script of many languages, including English. Thus, when used in an English context, the sounds of the different Hebrew characters must be converted, or transliterated, into Latin letters. However, the Hebrew word for the holiday uses sounds that aren’t found in the Latin alphabet. The difficulty begins with the very first letter of the word, which is the eighth letter of the Hebrew alphabet—ḥet, or chet. It is pronounced with a guttural sound that is similar to the /ch/ in loch. So, when the Hebrew word was transliterated in the 17th century, the ḥet became ch (Chanukah). However, when the English ch appears at the beginning of a word, it sounds quite different than the Hebrew ḥet (compare loch and chair). Thus, in the 18th century another spelling appeared—Hanukkah—even though the h doesn’t really sound like ḥet either. Transliteration issues also arose over the use of other letters—such as one or two k’s—resulting in many spelling variations.