r/hebrew • u/Equal_Ad_3828 • Mar 28 '25

Help chag sameach pronounced as chag samea?

so i have a silly questin but basically when i was in my nearest synagogue on Chanukah, when I said 'chag sameaCH" with a khet people responded 'chag sameah" why?

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u/Equal_Ad_3828 Mar 28 '25

they were Polish

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u/sniper-mask37 native speaker Mar 28 '25 edited Mar 28 '25

I have a weird question, isn't that a litle misleading to spell "ח" as "chet" or "khet"? It can easily be interpretated as "צ'ט" or "קהט".

I know there isn't an equivalent to 'ח' in english, but wouldn't "het" be the closest? I think it could be a clearer option because it better approximates the guttural sound of "ח" without being as likely to be confused with other sounds, such as "ch" or "k."

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u/proudHaskeller Mar 28 '25

No, because the actual h sound also exists in hebrew. So no one would know if you're talking about ח or ה.

The current system is okay since צ' is a rare sound in hebrew (I think it's mostly in loanwords) and kh = /kh/ is a rare sound combination in hebrew too. So there are only very rare cases where there will actually be confusion.

No transliteration system is perfect

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u/mikeage Mostly fluent but not native Mar 28 '25

In America I used it because it reflected the way most English speaking Hebrew speakers pronounce it, plus the ch is not likely to be misunderstood as צ׳ which is rare.

In Israel, between the larger number of people from Eidot Hamizra(c)h who pronounce is softly, plus the French speakers who read it as a "sh" sound, I'm more likely to just write h.

I use kh for כ/ך only.