• Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
    441·
    2 months ago

    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 van Lemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      13·
      2 months ago

      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.

    • meowMix2525@lemm.ee
      112·
      2 months ago

      The k makes it sound more islamic and triggers western audience’s latent islamophobia

      • Darkenfolk@dormi.zone
        41·
        2 months ago

        The k makes it sound more islamic and triggers western audience’s latent islamophobia

        With all due respect, I don’t think it’s the K-sound that triggers the “western audience’s latent islamophobia”.

        That probably has more to do with the news from England and Germany.

        • meowMix2525@lemm.ee
          1·
          2 months ago

          What news from England and Germany? The k thing (pronouncing the H in Hamas with a harsh hissing sound common in both Hebrew and Arabic but completely absent in English and other western languages) has been around at least since Oct. 7, probably much longer before that. It’s a dog whistle. At best, it’s in the spirit of mocking their language.

    • ulterno@lemmy.kde.socialEnglish
      35·
      2 months ago

      It’s probably just an alternate pronunciation.

      Considering that country names are different in different languages, I don’t see much of a problem with it.

      If the last sentence made you go “?” Check the

      • Chinese language name for China
      • Japanese name for Japan
      • Indian language names for India
      • But also what China, Japan and India have names for other countries and even alternate names for historical personalities in their languages. In some cases, even regional languages will have other alternate names.