Heth, sometimes written Chet or Ḥet, is the eighth
letter of the
Semitic abjads, including
Phoenician ''ḥēt'' 𐤇,
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
''ḥēt'' ,
Aramaic
Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
''ḥēṯ'' 𐡇,
Syriac ''ḥēṯ'' ܚ, and
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
''ḥāʾ'' . It is also related to the
Ancient North Arabian 𐪂,
South Arabian , and
Ge'ez .
Heth originally represented a voiceless fricative, either
pharyngeal , or
velar . In Arabic, two corresponding letters were created for both phonemic sounds: unmodified ' represents , while ' represents .
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the
Greek eta ,
Etruscan 
,
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
H, and
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...
И. While H is a consonant in the Latin alphabet, the Greek and Cyrillic equivalents represent
vowel
A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...
sounds, though the letter was originally a consonant in Greek and this usage later evolved into the
rough breathing
In the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, the rough breathing ( or ; ) character is a diacritical mark used to indicate the presence of an sound before a vowel, diphthong, or after rho. It remained in the polytonic orthography even af ...
character. The Phoenician letter also gave rise to the archaic Greek letter ''
heta'', as well as a variant of Cyrillic letter
I,
short I. The Arabic letter (ح) is sometimes transliterated as ''Ch'' in English.
Origins
The shape of the letter Ḥet probably goes back either to the
Egyptian hieroglyph
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters. ...
for 'courtyard' (''ḥwt''):
O6 (compare of identical meaning, which
begins with Ḥet).
or to the one for 'thread, wick' representing a wick of twisted flax: (''ḥ'')
V28 (compare of identical meaning, which
begins with Ḥet).
Possibly named in the
Proto-Sinaitic script
The Proto-Sinaitic script is a Middle Bronze Age writing system known from a small corpus of about Serabit el-Khadim proto-Sinaitic inscriptions, 30-40 inscriptions and fragments from Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinai Peninsula, as well as Wadi el ...
.
The corresponding
South Arabian letters are ḥ and ḫ, corresponding to the
Ge'ez letters ሐ and ኀ.
This letter is usually transcribed as ''ḥ'', h with a dot underneath. In some romanization systems, a (capital) Ch is also used.
Arabic ḥāʾ
The letter is named ' and is the sixth letter of the alphabet. Its shape varies depending on its position in the word, and its initial and medial form resembles a bird's beak:
This form is used to denote three letters, the other two being
ḫāʾ and
ǧīm. In Maltese, the corresponding letter to is .
Pronunciation
In Arabic, is similar to the
English , but it is much "raspier",
IPA: ~. (
Pharyngeal H)
In Persian, it is , like and the English ''h''.
Hebrew het
Pronunciation
In
Modern Israeli Hebrew (and
Ashkenazi Hebrew, although not under strict pronunciation), the letter Ḥet () usually has the sound value of a
voiceless uvular fricative (), as the historical phonemes of the letters () and () merged, both becoming the voiceless uvular fricative (). In more rare Ashkenazi phonologies, it is pronounced as a
voiceless pharyngeal fricative ().
The () pronunciation is still common among
Israeli Arabs and
Mizrahi Jews (particularly among the older generation and popular
Mizrahi singers, especially
Yemenites), in accordance with oriental Jewish traditions (see, e.g.,
Mizrahi Hebrew and
Yemenite Hebrew).
The ability to pronounce the Arabic letter ' () correctly as a
voiceless pharyngeal fricative is often used as a
shibboleth to distinguish
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
-speakers from non-Arabic-speakers; in particular, pronunciation of the letter as is seen as a hallmark of
Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim) form a distinct subgroup of the Jewish diaspora, that Ethnogenesis, emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium Common era, CE. They traditionally spe ...
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 rather than . For example: (), and ().
Variations
Ḥet, along with
Aleph
Aleph (or alef or alif, transliterated ʾ) is the first Letter (alphabet), letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician ''ʾālep'' 𐤀, Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew ''ʾālef'' , Aramaic alphabet, Aramaic ''ʾālap'' � ...
,
Ayin,
Resh
Resh is the twentieth Letter (alphabet), letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician ''rēš'' 𐤓, Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew ''rēš'' , Aramaic alphabet, Aramaic ''rēš'' 𐡓, Syriac alphabet, Syriac ''rēš'' � ...
, and
He, cannot receive a
dagesh. As pharyngeal fricatives are difficult for most English speakers to pronounce, loanwords are usually Anglicized to have . Thus (), pronounced by native Hebrew speakers as or is pronounced by most English speakers, who cannot often perceive the difference between and .
Significance
In
gematria, Ḥet represents the number eight.
In
chat rooms,
online forums, and
social networking the letter Ḥet repeated () denotes laughter, just as in English, in the saying 'Haha'.
Syriac cheth
Character encodings
See also
*Ħ, ħ :
H with stroke
References
External links
{{Northwest Semitic abjad
Phoenician alphabet
Arabic letters
Hebrew letters
Urdu letters