Chanukah

[lethargic_man]

It's just struck me: Why do we say CHAnukah? There's a חתף פתח on the first letter, not a פתח; it can't be stressed. It should be chaNUkah, same stress pattern as, say, כְּתוּבָה.

No, I'm not onto a losing battle here; I recognise that this battle was already lost, centuries ago...

Comments

[green_knight]

The stress on the first syllable is an established thing? Not just Tom Waits trying to fit the word into a song? (I forget which one, I just thought 'how odd'.

[lethargic_man]

How would you have tried to pronounce it, and why? (I don't know the Tom Waits song; I'm not really familiar with Waits.)

As it happens, I have learned from comments on Facebook that in the Israeli and Sephardi pronunciations, the stress is on the last syllable.

(I use the Ashkenazi pronunciation, which until a century ago was universal amongst Jews of central and eastern European origin, for which the stress pattern is heavily influenced by Yiddish (and therefore very similar to English).)

[green_knight]

I'd put the stress on the second syllable, which is the German pronounciation. Most of the time I just see the word written, so it hadn't occurred to me that Brits or Americans might pronounce it differently.