cellio | Christmas and Chanukah

Two takes on multiculturalism and December holidays, both written by liberal Jews, with rather different stances: one from JBCs (Jews by Choice) and one from the Velveteen Rabbi. I myself tend more toward the former; when we try to combine holidays with the goal of better interfaith relations, I think we weaken both. Christmas is the second most important day on the Christian calendar; it should be important and solemn for those who believe, and not be treated as somehow equivalent to a minor Jewish holiday commemorating, of all things, a victory over assimilation. (Think about that irony for a minute.) If I find myself in the midst of Christian affirmation, which to me includes everything from a mass down to singing Handel's Messiah, they should do their thing and I should withdraw [1]. We shouldn't have to compromise on "Frosty the Snowman" or a theme of light in the darkest days of winter.

Cross-religion education is a good thing, and I think most people would welcome serious inquiries from people of different faiths if they want to know more (or even attend services or other rituals). I've certainly participated on both sides of that and seen no problems. But I think we should remember that our religions are separate; they have different emphases and that's ok. We don't have to agree, and we don't have to try to build a lowest common denominator.

To my Christian friends, I wish you the best in your season of holiness now under way, as I know you wish similar things for me during the high holy days and at other times. I'm not offended by your observance of your religion; you don't need to water it down. Besides, the dreidel song is really insipid; please don't feel obligated on my account.

(Mind, I would have a different reaction to celebrations in a setting that's supposed to be neutral, like a public school or a place of (secular) employment. But that's not what I'm talking about here.)

[1] Some do not see a problem with things like singing Messiah. We all draw the "worship" line in different places.

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One thing I must ask, why so many different spellings of Chanukah?!?

Transliterations from languages using different alphabets are always chancy. Remember when Beijing was Peking?

There are three issues in the word "chanukah". First, the initial consonant is a gutteral, sort of like the "ch" in German. In Hebrew, there are two different letters that can make that sound, so pedantic transliterations need to differentiate. I don't know the rules for academic transliteration, but I've seen the following used for these two sounds: "ch", "kh", and (when not restricted to ASCII) "h" with a dot under it. I suspect that this last is the main source of sometimes just seeing "h" (e.g. "Hanukah"); that and the fact that non-native speakers have trouble making that sound to begin with.

For the second point, I'm going to wave my hands wildly and say "grammar thing". There is a symbol (called a dageish) that can sometimes appear with a consonant; it doesn't change the pronunciation but it changes other things (like conjugation?) in ways that I don't really understand. So a pedantic transliteration will want to convey the presence of that symbol, which is usually done by doubling the consonant. The consonant corresponding to the "n" in this word has that symbol.

Third, there is the matter of the final "h". It's silent, so sometimes people leave it out, but again, there is a Hebrew letter corresponding to that letter, so a pedantic transliteration represents it.

The most correct transliteration, then, is probably "Channukah". The least correct would be "Hanuka".

And just in case that's not enough for you, not all vowels are as they appear either... :-) (Though I don't think that problem arises in this word.)

I think most people who are not academics or professionals apply these rules inconsistently based on a sense of what "looks right". For example by these rules, my Hebrew name should have a final "h", but for some reason almost everyone writes "Shira" and not "Shirah", and that's what I'm used to.

(Biblical Hebrew) Linguist here: The dagesh is in the kaf and not in the nun, so no double "n". The dagesh in the kaf keeps it from being even weirder to transliterate, because without it there would be one of each of the ch/kh letters and then there would be the question of whether or not to transliterate them the same way.

If I were transliterating the word for another linguist - and assuming my American/Israeli pronunciation which doesn't differentiate between chet and chaf - I'd write it as xanuka where the x is pronounced like the ch at the end of Bach. For general usage I usually write chanukah, but that's partly "it just looks the best" of the variations I've seen over the years.

Thanks very much! As for the dageish -- that'll teach me to spell from memory. :-) (I've sen the "nn" so much that I think I back-constructed. Oops.)

The most correct transliteration, then, is probably "Channukah". The least correct would be "Hanuka".

I like Rhu Green's: "Happy (Ch|H|Kh)an(n)uk(k)a(h)."

Christmas and Chanukah

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