From the wiki article on Hannukah
mm
marketed to Jews, in which a woman complained that the Kislev holiday
is sometimes spelled Hannukah. She insisted it should be Chanukah. I
already knew good reasons for the various spellings, but I came across
this in wiki and snce I can't write to her, I'm writing to you.
'In Hebrew, the word Hanukkah is written het nun cof heh? or het nun
vov cof heh (H.anukkâh. [The dot after the H should be under the H.
There should be a little v over the first a and a little inverted v
over the second] It is most commonly transliterated to English as
Chanukah or Hanukkah, the latter because the sound represented by "CH"
([/X/], similar to the Scottish pronunciation of "loch") essentially
does not exist in the modern English language. Furthermore, the letter
"chet" (het), which is the first letter in the Hebrew spelling, is
pronounced differently in modern Hebrew (voiceless uvular fricative)
than in classical Hebrew (voiceless pharyngeal fricative), and neither
of those sounds is unambiguously representable in English spelling.
Moreover, the 'kaf' consonant is geminate in classical (but not
modern) Hebrew. Adapting the classical Hebrew pronunciation with the
geminate and pharyngeal H.eth can lead to the spelling "Hanukkah";
while adapting the modern Hebrew pronunciation with no geminate and
velar H.eth leads to the spelling "Chanukah".'
--
Meir
"The baby's name is Shlomo. He's named after his grandfather, Scott."
Amitai
order to transliterate from Hebrew to English, I have to be able to
dot the H and superpose inverted and uninverted v's over various A's,
transliteration beomes hopelessly cumbersome. What is called for is a
system that can be typed easily with a QWERTY keyboard and is as true
to the Hebrew alphabet as possible while keeping it simple.
Several such systems have been proposed. Years back, when I had more
energy, I kept pushing my ownsystem on SCJ and later SCJM. I still use
it but have stopped pushing. If anyone is interested, here it is.
Vowels (Modern Israeli pronunciation):
pata`h, kamatz = a; (when a word ends in a soundless "heh", h should
be added.
segol = e
`tzeireh = e _or_ ei
`hiriq = i
`holam = o
shuruq, qubutz = u
Consonants:
bet = b; gimel =g; dalet = d
heh = h; vav = v; zayin = z
`het = `h; tet = t; yod = y
kaf = k; lamed =l; mem = m
nun = n; samekh = s; peh = p
tzadi = tz; qof = o; resh = r
shin = sh; sin = s; tav = t
In modern Israeli Hebrew `ayin has become virtually soundless, like
aleph; the function of both is to carry the vowel. Nonetheless,the
distinction between them must be kept.
For aleph, the soundless consonant is implied: ani (I), eipho (where).
ikar (farmer).
When two alephs appear in succession, they are separated by an
apostrophe: ma'arav (ambush), he'edim (became red).
For `ayin the consonant is preceded by `(single quotation mark): `erev
(evening),`iqar (principle),
ma`arav (West).
(Using t for both tet and tav and s for both samekh and sin is almost
universal and causes little
confusion, so I retained the usage despite its inconsistency. The
correct sephardic pronunciation would reject tz for tzadi, but this
usage is also too common to change.)
The transliteration above of bet, kaf, and peh assumed that they have
a dagesh, i.e., are not aspirated. The corresponding aspirated letters
are transliterated as bh, kh, and ph respectively. While
pheh=f is innocuous, bhet=v can be confusing and should be avoided
(though I too have committed this sin more than once). However, I
strongly recommend adherence to khaf=kh for two reasons:
1. To avoid confusion between `het and khaf: `hakham (wise),`ho'a`h
(thorn), hokha`hah (proof).
2. The ch sound, as in church, has crept into colloquial Hebrew from
various sources, i.e., chupchik thingamajig), chupar (bonus), chizbat
(tall tale), etc., etc., that ch should be retained for it in order to
avoid monstrosities like tsch.
Finally the holiday just celebrated would be `hanukah, capitalized to
Hanukah (dropping the preceding quotation mark). There is no neead to
double the k; the dagesh is already implied.
Amitai
> Meir
>
mirjam
חנוכה
Meir you forgot the Wav after the Nun
mirjam
Amitai
> חנוכה
> Meir you forgot the Wav after the Nun
It is also legitimately spelled with a "qubutz" (no vav).
See Bamidbar 7:10 and elsewhere.
Amitai
> mirjam
meir b.
In fact, it is _more_ legitimately written without the vav. The
vav is used only when writing without vowels; when they are written,
there is never a vav. If the true form were with vav, there would be
no dagesh in ths kaf, and the holiday would be Chanuchah.
In your transliteration scheme, why add an h when there is a
silent hei at the end of the word? Shouldn't the addition of the hei
be reserved for the cases in which it is pronounced (mappik hei), in
words such as gavoah (high)?
Meir B.
Amitai
> On Dec 25, 4:09 pm, Amitai <chr0...@techunix.technion.ac.il> wrote:
>
> > On Dec 25, 3:55 pm, mirjam <mir...@actcom.co.il> wrote:
>
> > > חנוכה
> > > Meir you forgot the Wav after the Nun
>
> > It is also legitimately spelled with a "qubutz" (no vav).
> > See Bamidbar 7:10 and elsewhere.
>
> > Amitai
>
> In fact, it is _more_ legitimately written without the vav. The
> vav is used only when writing without vowels; when they are written,
> there is never a vav. If the true form were with vav, there would be
> no dagesh in ths kaf, and the holiday would be Chanuchah.
>
except in poetry - to use "ktiv malei" (expanded spelling), which does
not differentiate between "qubutz" and "shuruq". I personally don't
like it, but was not consulted when the practice was initiated. :-(
> In your transliteration scheme, why add an h when there is a
> silent hei at the end of the word? Shouldn't the addition of the hei
> be reserved for the cases in which it is pronounced (mappik hei), in
> words such as gavoah (high)?
>
After considerable soul searching, I decided to add h for the final
silent "heh" in order to distinguish between homonyms like (e.g.,
"morah"=teacher and "mora"=awe, or "matzah"= unleavened bread and
"matza"=found). Of course, this makes me write "torah" both for Torah
and `her turn' (with the mapiq). I decided that that it was more
important to eliminate the former ambiguity, which is more common,
particularly as Israeli Hebrew has virtually lost the distinction
between "tzeire" and "segol",and - without the added h - most
Israelis would write "qore" for both read and happen.
I should note that my transliteration scheme was not intended for use
in biblical or other Judaic studies. What I, among others, was trying
to devise some thirty years ago was a simple, workable system for
exchanging information electronically between Hebrew speakers, at a
time when Hebrew fonts were not universally available.
Shavu`a tov,
Amitai
> Meir B.
mm
<NOPSAM...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>Last week there was a letter to the editor of the local magazine
>marketed to Jews, in which a woman complained that the Kislev holiday
>is sometimes spelled Hannukah. She insisted it should be Chanukah. I
>already knew good reasons for the various spellings, but I came across
>this in wiki and snce I can't write to her, I'm writing to you.
>
>'In Hebrew, the word Hanukkah is written het nun cof heh?
When the Hebrew letters were pasted into my newsreader, they turned
into question marks, but I only deleted 3 out of 4. The one above
after they heh should have been deleted. Sorry.
>or het nun
>vov cof heh
Miriam, I didn't forget the Wav, after the nun. I just spelled if
vov. One of two choices the wiki author offers. But isn't "full
spelling, ketiva shaleim?? did I get that right, or at least close?",
mostly Israeli? I still live in Pennsylvania in 1952, when I started
Hebrew school.
>(H.anukkâh. [The dot after the H should be under the H.
>There should be a little v over the first a and a little inverted v
>over the second]
I don't think the wiki guy was saying we had to spell it with
diacritical marks. They usually transliterate Hebrew words that way,
for the linguists nad nerds and others who understand the phonetic
alphabet, especially when the word is the topic of the whole entry.
Abe Kohen
Kamatz katan vs holam?
shva? (or shwa?)
tet vs tav? mitat habaal vs mitat habaal (death of the husband vs bed of the
husband - one "frees" the wife, the other ...
qof = o ???? (typo assumed for q.)
`tzeireh ??? what does the leading ` mean?
segol and tzeireh being prononounced the same has always bothered me,
compounded when tet and tav are the same: et vs et?
ma'arav vs ma'arav? (apostrophe and single quotation mark may appear the
same in certain fonts.)
tzadi with a ' as ch
zayin with a ' as in zsazsa or as some of my Moroccan friends speak.
gimmel with a '.
Top posted because of quoting incompatibility with google groups and OE
newsreader.
Best,
Abe
"Amitai" <chr...@techunix.technion.ac.il> wrote in message
news:e5da435e-018c-4e14...@o28g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
Amitai
> shva? (or shwa?)
>
(I would have preferred w for vav, but v is too well entrenched):
Shva na`=e, shva na`h=blank
> tet vs tav? mitat habaal vs mitat habaal (death of the husband vs bed of the
> husband - one "frees" the wife, the other ...
>
One of the unhappily unresolved inconsistencies (in life as well: cf.
Freud's "Eros and Thanatos").
In some transliteration schemes th has been used for tav, but then how
would you differentiate between raphah and degushah?
> qof = o ???? (typo assumed for q.)
>
Correct.
> `tzeireh ??? what does the leading ` mean?
>
Typo. Delete it.
> segol and tzeireh being prononounced the same has always bothered me,
> compounded when tet and tav are the same: et vs et?
>
An unfortunate coincidence, but the Israeli pronunciation of both is
the same, particularly for closed syllables.
> ma'arav vs ma'arav? (apostrophe and single quotation mark may appear the
> same in certain fonts.)
>
In most fonts ma`arav is distinguishable from ma'arav. When it isn't,
I would drop the apostrophe in ma'rav and write maarav. Similarly,
"sha`on" watch and "sha'on" or simply "shaon" (uproar).
> tzadi with a ' as ch
>
ch, as in chizbat.
>zayin with a ' as in zsazsa or as some of my Moroccan friends speak.
>
zh. However, with all due respect to your Moroccan friends, I would
write "hayom hazeh" rather than "hayom hazheh".
> gimmel with a '.
>
In the exceptional case where it might be needed, use dzh; it is to
rare in Hebrew to waste j on.
A legitimate question would be: Why not use the single letters j and x
at all?
If I were starting all over, I would recommend borrowing their
pronunciation from Spanish and Portuguese respectively: j=`het;
x=shin. Regrettably, at that time different people were using these
two letters in a variety of ways, so I decided to avoid them in order
not to increase the confusion.
> Top posted because of quoting incompatibility with google groups and OE
> newsreader.
>
> Best,
> Abe
>
> "Amitai" <chr0...@techunix.technion.ac.il> wrote in message
> > Meir- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -