Hanukkah or chanukah which is correct

Is it Chanukah? It's not easy to figure out how many n's and k's there are and if there's a c before the h. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, there's no definitive right answer. Unlike Christmas, which has one spelling in the English language, Hanukkah's story is a bit more complicated because it has to do with transliteration.

A transliteration gives a person an idea of how a word in a foreign language is pronounced. It changes the letters of the word's original alphabet into similar-sounding letters of a different language's alphabet.

Pronounced with the eighth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, chet, a guttural, throaty sound similar to the "ch" in Johann Brach, according to Chabad. This led to the spelling of the holiday with a "ch" as Chanukah. However, the closest sounding letter in the English alphabet is "h," which prompted the spelling of the holiday as "Hanukkah. The answer comes down to transliteration. This accounts for why there are so many spelling variants there are more than But, Hanukkah and Chanukah are the two versions that are most widely used and accepted.

No matter how you spell it, Hanukkah lasts for eight days. It commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Scholars disagree about how to interpret the Hebrew word for Hanukkah.

On each night of the holiday, a different branch of a candelabrum called a menorah is illuminated. Type keyword s to search.

Today's Top Stories. The Rise of the Cleanfluencer. Kameleon Getty Images. Hanukkah is the most popular spelling. Related Story. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Amina Lake Abdelrahman, Good Housekeeping Institute Editorial Assistant Amina is an editorial assistant at the Good Housekeeping Institute, where she works with lab experts who test all the latest products and writes original content based on their recommendations. This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.

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