Hanukkah

Happy Hanukkah!

Out of curiosity, is there a preferred way to spell Hanukkah (Chanukah, Hannukah)? A student asked me today. I grew up spelling it with a C, but now use the H with only one N in it. Thoughts?
 
In Hebrew the spelling starts with a "chet" which makes a "clear your throat" sound, so the word is "ch" anookah. The English transliterations have their own way of signifying this sound (H with a dot, X, kh...whatever) but too many of them have decided to simplify the sound by putting a regular H at the beginning. The English spelling is only incidental as it is a transliteration, though.
 
rosends said:
In Hebrew the spelling starts with a "chet" which makes a "clear your throat" sound, so the word is "ch" anookah. The English transliterations have their own way of signifying this sound (H with a dot, X, kh...whatever) but too many of them have decided to simplify the sound by putting a regular H at the beginning. The English spelling is only incidental as it is a transliteration, though.
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Thank you for the additional information!
 
Happy holidays to those that celebrate.

I dimly remember that it's tricky to get the order of lighting the candles right. Is that just a garbled childhood memory, or is there some interesting complexity involved?
 
Cino said:
Happy holidays to those that celebrate.

I dimly remember that it's tricky to get the order of lighting the candles right. Is that just a garbled childhood memory, or is there some interesting complexity involved?
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On the first night, you use the helper candle (the shamash) to light a candle on the right-most side of the channukiah. On the next nights, you put the candles in from oldest to newest (right to left) but light newest to oldest (left to right).
 
Thanks for clearing that up, rosends.
 
And happy holidays to all, this time around!
 
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