Heth

Ḥet or H̱et (also spelled Khet, Kheth, Chet, Cheth, Het, or Heth) is the eighth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Ḥēt , Hebrew Ḥēt ח‎, Aramaic Ḥēth , Syriac Ḥēṯ ܚ, and Arabic Ḥā' ح.

Heth originally represented a voiceless fricative, either pharyngeal /ħ/, or velar /x/ (the two Proto-Semitic phonemes having merged in Canaanite). In Arabic, two corresponding letters were created for both phonemic sounds: unmodified ḥāʾ ح represents /ħ/, while ḫāʾ خ represents /x/.

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Eta Η, Etruscan , Latin H and Cyrillic И. While H is a consonant in the Latin alphabet, the Greek and Cyrillic equivalents represent vowel sounds.

Origins

The letter shape ultimately goes back to a hieroglyph for "courtyard",

Possibly named ḥasir in the Middle Bronze Age alphabets. The Modern Hebrew word for courtyard is Hatzer (חצר). While the name goes rather back to ḫayt, the name reconstructed for a letter derived from a hieroglyph for "thread",

In Arabic "thread" is خيط [xajtˤ] or [xeːtˤ].

The corresponding South Arabian letters are ḥ and ḫ, corresponding to Ge'ez Ḥauṭ ሐ and Ḫarm ኀ.

Arabic ḥāʾ

The letter is named حاء ḥāʾ and is the sixth letter of the alphabet. Its shape varies depending on its position in the word:

This form is used to denote two letters, the second being خ ḫāʾ.

Pronunciation

In Arabic, ḥāʾ is similar to the English [h], but it is much "raspier",^[1] IPA: [ħ]~[ʜ].

In Persian, it is [h], like ⟨ﻫ⟩ and the English h.

Hebrew Ḥet

Orthographic variants
Various print fonts			Cursive Hebrew	Rashi script
Serif	Sans-serif	Monospaced
ח	ח	ח

Hebrew spelling: חֵית‎

Pronunciation

In Modern Israeli Hebrew (and Ashkenazi Hebrew, although not under strict pronunciation), the letter Ḥet (חֵית‎) usually has the sound value of a voiceless uvular fricative (/χ/), as the historical phonemes of the letters Ḥet ח (/ħ/) and Khaf כ (/x/) merged, both becoming the voiceless uvular fricative ([χ]).

In more rare phonologies, it is pronounced as a voiceless pharyngeal fricative (/ħ/) and is still among Mizrahim (especially among the older generation and popular Mizrahi singers, mostly Yemenies), in accordance with oriental Jewish traditions.

The ability to pronounce the Arabic letter ḥāʾ (ح) correctly as a voiceless pharyngeal fricative /ħ/ is often used as a shibboleth to distinguish Arabic-speakers from non-Arabic-speakers; in particular, pronunciation of the letter as /x/ is seen as a hallmark of Ashkenazi Jews and Greek Jews.

Ḥet is one of the few Hebrew consonants that can take a vowel at the end of a word. This occurs when patach gnuva comes under the Ḥet at the end of the word. The combination is then pronounced /-aχ/ rather than /-χa/. For example: פתוח (/ˌpaˈtuaχ/), and תפוח (/ˌtaˈpuaχ/).

Variations

Ḥet, along with Aleph, Ayin, Resh, and He, cannot receive a dagesh. As pharyngeal fricatives are difficult for most English speakers to pronounce, loanwords are usually Anglicized to have /h/. Thus challah (חלה), pronounced by native Hebrew speakers as /χala/ or /ħala/ is pronounced /halə/ by most English speakers, who cannot often perceive the difference between [h] and [ħ].

Significance

In gematria, Ḥet represents the number eight.

In chat rooms, online forums, and social networking the letter Ḥet repeated (חחחחחחחחחח) denotes laughter, just as in english, in the saying 'Haha'.

Character encodings

See also

• Ħ, ħ : Latin letter H with stroke

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to ח.