How do you pronounce "Challif"?

Greg Melcer · May 26, 2000

I ask because I'm the proud owner of one.

What a strange knife. Halfway between a small cleaver and a large straight razor.

Thanks for finding it for me Sal! I have the email that Olive sent me and the payment will be sent out the first thing next week.

This thing is sweet!

Pics can be found in this thread: http://www.bladeforums.com/ubb/Forum52/HTML/000202.html

[This message has been edited by Greg Melcer (edited 05-26-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Greg Melcer (edited 05-26-2000).]

Sal Glesser · May 26, 2000

Greg - I can say it, but I don't know if I can describe it. James??

The "Ch" sounds line the sound of grinding a piece of steel on a coarse stone followed by "a" as in haha "lif" is a short "i" like lift without the t.

accent on the a.

They have to be so sharp that the chicken doesn't know that it's been cut.

sal

[This message has been edited by Sal Glesser (edited 05-26-2000).]

James Mattis · May 28, 2000

Linguists might make subtle distinctions that are lost on my ear, but the CH sound in transliterated Hebrew is like the CH in Johann Sebastian Bach or Loch Ness Monster. Halfway between an H and a K. Think of the sound as sort of a hard H.

Here's a reference page I just found, about the Hebrew alphabet (alephbet).

I'm basically monolingual in English, but I read somewhere that the word challif, for a kosher slaughtering knife, comes from a Hebrew root meaning "Change," as in the transition from life to death or from bird to poultry, about as painlessly as such things can be done. "Circle of life"!

And I learned something new just now.

The Alephbet link above gives a bit of an introduction to Hebrew numerology too, of some interest to Internet people. I knew that the numeric value of chet-yod (chai-life) is 18, so donations to Jewish charities are frequently made in multiples of 18. I hadn't noticed before that the numeric value of vav (the nearest thing to a W in Hebrew) is 6, so www is 6-6-6. That has a sinister connotation in a related religion, but in Hebrew the values are simply added together to suggest that the Internet is some sort of "life force."

And if you pronounce chai with an English CH, you're asking for tea in a bunch of other languages.

And, after posting this, I just found another Hebrew Language site that has audio files.

Shalom,

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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001

[This message has been edited by James Mattis (edited 05-27-2000).]