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 Ḥēth ח‎, Aramaic Ḥēth , Syriac Ḥēṯ ܚ, Arabic Ḥā' ح, Maltese Ħ, ħ.

This article is about the Semitic letter. For other uses, see Heth (disambiguation).
Het
Phonemic representationχ, x, ħ
Position in alphabet8
Numerical value8
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician

Heth originally represented a voiceless fricative, either pharyngeal /ħ/, or velar /x/. 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 shape of the letter Ḥet ultimately goes back either to the Egyptian hieroglyph for 'courtyard':

(compare Hebrew חָצֵר ḥatser of identical meaning, which begins with Ḥet) or to the one for 'thread, wick' representing a wick of twisted flax[1][2]:

(compare Hebrew חוּט ḥut of identical meaning, which begins with Ḥet).

Possibly named ḥasir in the Proto-Sinaitic script.

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

This letter is usually transcribed as ḥ, h with a dot underneath. In some romanization systems, a capital H is also used. The latter method has the advantage of being easy to type on a computer.

Arabic ḥāʾ
See also: خ

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

Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial
Glyph form:
(Help)		 ح‎ ـح‎ ـحـ‎ حـ‎

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",[3] 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
SerifSans-serifMonospaced
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 Mizrahi Jews (especially among the older generation and popular Mizrahi singers, mostly Yemenite Jews), in accordance with oriental Jewish traditions (see, e.g., Mizrahi Hebrew and Yemenite Hebrew).

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 /-aħ/ rather than /-ħa/. For example: פתוח (/ˌpaˈtuaħ/), and תפוח (/ˌtaˈpuaħ/).

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
Character information
Previewחحܚࠇ
Unicode nameHEBREW LETTER HETARABIC LETTER HAHSYRIAC LETTER HETHSAMARITAN LETTER HIT
Encodingsdecimalhexdecimalhexdecimalhexdecimalhex
Unicode1495U+05D71581U+062D1818U+071A2055U+0807
UTF-8215 151D7 97216 173D8 AD220 154DC 9A224 160 135E0 A0 87
Numeric character referenceחחححܚܚࠇࠇ
Character information
Preview𐎈𐡇𐤇
Unicode nameUGARITIC LETTER HOTAIMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER HETHPHOENICIAN LETTER HET
Encodingsdecimalhexdecimalhexdecimalhex
Unicode66440U+1038867655U+1084767847U+10907
UTF-8240 144 142 136F0 90 8E 88240 144 161 135F0 90 A1 87240 144 164 135F0 90 A4 87
UTF-1655296 57224D800 DF8855298 56391D802 DC4755298 56583D802 DD07
Numeric character reference𐎈𐎈𐡇𐡇𐤇𐤇
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See also

References
  1. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%93%8E%9B
  2. http://vincent.euverte.free.fr/Rosette/Rosette_410.php?Hiero=V28&Lang=E
  3. Bouchentouf, Amine (2006). Arabic for Dummies. Wiley Publishing, Inc. p. 15.
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