Happy ...

[calimac]

Hanukkah (9,330,000 Google hits without quotation marks, 9,140,000 with)
Chanukah (3,350,000 or 3,360,000)
Hannukah (3,270,000 or 981,000)
Hanukah (512,000 or 513,000)
Hanuka (281,000 or 243,000)
Chanukkah (275,000)
Chanuka (250,000 or 249,000)
Channukah (145,000)
Hanukka (108,000 or 103,000)
Chanukka (103,000)
Hannuka (75,500 or 77,700)
Channukkah (61,400 or 61,100)
Hannukkah (57,700 or 58,600)
Channuka (56,200)
Hannukka (49,800 or 49,600)
Khanuka (10,700)
Channukka (9,340 or 9,090)
Khanukkah (7,150 or 7,210)
Khanukah (4,870 or 4,890)
Khanukka (4,560)
Khannukah (969 or 957)
Khannuka (810 or 808)
Khannukkah (61 or 62)
Khannukka (6 or 5)

(inspired by a post from sandial)

Comments

[sandial.livejournal.com]

Interesting results -- and I appreciate the trouble you've taken -- but I don't consider this matter open to a democratic vote.

"Chanukah" conveys the correct pronunciation (to the extent English orthography can) and "Hanukkah" and its variants does not. The "h" spelling is for wimps who are afraid that producing a guttural sound will hurt their throats.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Did I say that I considered the results determinative? I'm just tallying the votes, same as you did.

I don't consider "Ch", which I want to pronounce as in that alien-to-Jews word, "church", to be much superior to "H" in representing the sound in question, which is why I included the "Kh" variants. That's the best solution in English orthography, so it's unfortunate that that is the least popular class of spellings.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

I just saw sandial yesterday and told him this story, from nellorat's family: the high school principal introducing a song in the Holiday concert as '"Cha-NUKE-ah, Cha-NUKE-ah", a Jewish Christmas song."

("Cha" here like "Cha-cha". Which, as you point out, is at least as wrong as "Han" like "Han Solo".)

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Yes! that's exactly the problem.

[scribblerworks.livejournal.com]

Oh, lordie!

"A Jewish Christmas song"!!!!!


Ouch, ouch, ouch. That spins me like a dreidel!