Heth
Eighth letter of many Semitic alphabets / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Heth, sometimes written Chet or Ḥet, is the eighth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ḥēt 𐤇, Hebrew ḥēt ח, Aramaic ḥēṯ 𐡇, Syriac ḥēṯ ܚ, and Arabic ḥāʾ ح.
Heth | |
---|---|
Phoenician | |
Hebrew | ח |
Aramaic | |
Syriac | ܚ |
Arabic | ح |
Phonemic representation | χ, x, ħ |
Position in alphabet | 8 |
Numerical value | 8 |
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician | |
Greek | Η |
Latin | H |
Cyrillic | И |
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, though the letter was originally a consonant in Greek and this usage later evolved into the rough breathing character.[1]