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Poll: You Say Chanukah. I Say Hanukkah. How Do You Spell the Festival of Lights? | A Celebration of Hanukkah with Geoffrey Baer

Poll: You Say Chanukah. I Say Hanukkah. How Do You Spell the Festival of Lights?

Band playing on stage with various color spotlights shining
Credit: Jenny Macchione

Some opt for Hanukkah. Others spell it Chanukah. And there are lots of other variations out there, too. But why are there so many variations of the English translation of the word Hanukkah?

For starters, the two spellings are transliterations of the Hebrew word. Transliteration refers to the conversion of a letter or word from one alphabet into another. The Hebrew word for Hanukkah contains neither H nor C-H. It’s spelled with the Hebrew letter het, a guttural letter which is spoken at the back of the throat.

Rabbi Ari Hart of Skokie Valley Agudath Jacob in Skokie, Illinois, is a fan of the Chanukah spelling.

“The [het] is important. Chanukah is a very beautiful word. It means ‘to dedicate.’ It also means ‘to educate.’ Chanukah is a time of rededication. It was a time they rededicated the temple in Jerusalem. But it’s also time for personal rededication. What am I committed to? What are my values? What’s the light that I’m going to bring into the world?” Hart said.

Rabbi Allison Tick Brill of Congregation Sukkat Shalom in Wilmette, Illinois, opts for Hanukkah.

“There’s such diversity within the Jewish community in the way that people even pronounce certain letters. So seeing the different spellings is another example of that diversity,” Tick Brill said. “Oftentimes it has to do with how connected they are to Yiddish. Yiddish changes some of the pronunciations, and depending on what generation of family came to this country or what region they’re from, they pronounce things differently. I served a congregation in High Point, North Carolina. They had their own way of pronouncing Hebrew words that had a southern drawl. So everyone does it differently.”