The kaf does have a dot (dagesh) but as far as I know that is just the nature of the letter, and is not meant to indicate extra emphasis as is often the case when a consonant that does not usually have a dot has one in a particular word ie- that kaf will have a dagesh no matter when or where the letter appears in a word (I should add also that it will never be the last letter in a word. In such a case it would be a chaf-sofit and the sound would be the 'ch' sound unless there is a dagesh which would harden the sound to a 'k'.) There are numerous grammatical reasons for the presence of a dagesh(which is the primary name for that type of dot. Unless it's in a letter 'heh' at the end of a word which is referred to as a mapik and usually denotes female ownership- her x or y). Sometimes it's for emphasis and sometimes it's there as a replacement for a missing letter, or because it is grammatically necessary following certain consonants.Jnyusa wrote: It's the kaf and not the nun that has the dot, right? It should be two k's, but double-k is so unusual in English it never looks quite right to me, so I almost always end up doubling the n instead.
Jn
Usually, the letter kaf is transliterated using the single english letter k. I'm not sure if a second k would be required for english grammar reasons or if the n would have to be doubled for that reason (when it comes to english grammar it is embarressing how much I've forgotten .
. Egregious mistakes galore I'd imagine.) You are correct that there is no dagesh in the nun so from a transliteration standpoint I would assume that it would not require a second n. In terms of ch or h, phonetically the sound of the chet in the hebrew word chanukah is equivalent to the ch sound whereas the h would be the phonetic equivalent of the letter heh. However, technically, because the proper pronunciation of the chet is gutteral, as many sephardim pronounce it, using an h would not be so far off either (and I think is often used in transliteration). I guess the sound is somewhere between the ch and h.
I also assumed that mainstream english uses h instead of ch because the ch sound is difficult to pronounce for people who grew up speaking english as a first language with no other real exposure to other languages as it is not a sound common to most english words.
At the end of the day, though, the intended word is clear so all I have to say is -spelling shmelling
I mean, I've brought Hamentashen to the office on Purim - was I shoving my practice at defenceless coworkers? They didn't seem to mind. 