Hanukkah Or Chanukah: What Is The Correct Spelling For The Jewish Festival Of Lights?

The Jewish Festival of Lights will commence at sundown on Saturday. But even for those who will be lighting the candles on the menorah there may well be some confusion over just how to spell the name of the holiday. Is it Hanukkah or Chanukah?

The truth is there is no right or wrong answer. They are both translations of a Hebrew word meaning “dedication” or “consecration.” The holiday was given that name because of its celebration of the rededication of the Holy, or Second, Temple by the Maccabean Jews after it had been desecrated by the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire under the rule of Antiochus.

The Hebrew word is pronounced with a guttural “kh” sound that has no direct equivalent in English, making it hard to spell and even harder to pronounce. Chanukah was initially used, but gradually Hanukkah gained in popularity due to its more accessible spelling for native-English speakers.

But then there’s also the matter of whether it’s one K or two Ks. The root of that confusion appears to lie in the fact that there are two ways of making the K sound in Hebrew, with two Ks perhaps being used to represent the second way of making the sound.

The lack of clarity doesn’t end there. There are also a number of other spellings floating around, including “Hannukah,” “Channuka” and plenty more.

Getting the Hebrew pronunciation right does help, though. The last two Hebrew letters of the holiday, “chaf” and “hei,” are equivalent to 25 in the Hebrew alphanumeric system, acting as a mnemonic device to remember that Hanukkah occurs on the 25th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev.

If you’re still wondering how to spell it, then the choice is really over whether you want to fall in with the bulk of the crowd or be a traditionalist. Hanukkah has now become the most commonly used spelling, turning up 28.1 million search results on Google, compared with 5.6 million for the more traditional Chanukah.