this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2024
341 points (88.5% liked)

Memes

45553 readers
1538 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 42 points 1 month ago (11 children)

TIL Hebrew speakers pronounce Hamas as Khamas and that spelling is used to make fun of them. I thought it was a legit alternate spelling

[–] Resol@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The Hebrew letter Chet does indeed correspond to the Arabic letter ح which makes the hard H sound. Since most Hebrew speakers cannot pronounce it, the closest sound to them is KH (also represented by the letter Kuf, Arabic equivalent is خ), thus when they try to pronounce "Hamas", they end up saying "KHAMASSS". And no, Chet is not the only Hebrew letter affected by a sound change like this, but it's the relevant one because it's used in the Hebrew spelling of "Hamas".

Hope that makes it make more sense.

[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] Resol@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

You're welcome.

load more comments (8 replies)