Etymology
The letter mainly continues Arabic ح (ḥ) and Arabic خ (ḵ). These two phonemes were merged into /ħ/ around Valetta since at least the 18th century, but continued to be distinguished as /ħ/ and /x~χ/ elsewhere. By the later 19th century, however, this merger had established itself throughout the language (thus significantly earlier than that of għ, which see).
Additionally it may continue Arabic ه /h/. This letter was mostly vowelised (see h), but as first or last radical of a root it sporadically underwent fortition instead.
The symbol <ħ> was apparently first used by Maltese canon Giusseppe Martin Cannolo in 1822 in the first Maltese written Gospel, though it was not popularised until the latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, being officially adopted in 1924.[1]
Letter
ħ (upper case Ħ)
- The eleventh letter of the Maltese alphabet, called ħe and written in the Latin script.
Usage notes
- In contemporary Maltese, the letter ħ represents /ħ/ in all positions. Chiefly word-finally, the same phoneme may also be represented by għ or h. The actual realisation varies (by position and speaker) between [χ], [ħ], and [h]. This variation is purely allophonic.
References
Arnold Cassola (2013) “A note on the dating of ħ, għ and x in Maltese”, in Albert Borg, Sandro Caruana, Alexandra Vella, editors, Perspectives on Maltese Linguistics, Akademie Verlag, →DOI, page 16,
See also
- (Latin-script letters) ittra; A a, B b, Ċ ċ, D d, E e, F f, Ġ ġ, G g, Għ għ, H h, Ħ ħ, I i, Ie ie, J j, K k, L l, M m, N n, O o, P p, Q q, R r, S s, T t, U u, V v, W w, X x, Ż ż, Z z
