He (letter)

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He
Phonemic representationh
Position in alphabet5
Numerical value5
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician

He is the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads, including PhoenicianPhoenician he.svg, Hebrewה, AramaicHe0.svg, Syriacܗ, and Arabic Hāʾ ه. Its sound value is a voiceless glottal fricative ([h]).

The proto-Canaanite letter gave rise to the Greek Epsilon, Etruscan E 𐌄, Latin E, Ë and Ɛ, and Cyrillic Е, Ё, Є and Э. He, like all Phoenician letters, represented a consonant, but the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic equivalents have all come to represent vowel sounds.

Origins[edit]

In Proto-Northwest Semitic there were still three voiceless fricatives: uvular , glottal h, and pharyngeal . In the Wadi el-Hol script, these appear to be expressed by derivatives of the following Egyptian hieroglyphs

V28

ḫayt "thread",

A28

hillul "jubilation", compare South Arabian Himjar ha.PNG h, Himjar ha2.PNG , Himjar kha.PNG , Ge'ez , , , and

O6

ḥasir "court".

In the Phoenician alphabet, ḫayt and ḥasir are merged into Heth "fence", while hillul is replaced by He "window".

Arabic hāʾ[edit]

The letter is named hāʾ. It is written in several ways depending on its position in the word:

Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial
Glyph form:
(Help)
ه ـه ـهـ هـ

Hāʾ is used as a suffix (with the harakat dictated by ʾIʿrab) indicating possession, indicating that the noun marked with the suffix belongs to a specific masculine possessor; for example, كِتَاب kitāb ("book") becomes كِتَابُهُ kitābuhu ('his book') with the addition of final hāʾ; the possessor is implied in the suffix. A longer example, هُوَ يَقْرَأُ كِتَابَهُ, (huwa yaqraʼu kitābahu, "he reads his book") more clearly indicates the possessor. Hāʾ is also used as the Arabic abbreviation for dates following the Islamic era AH.

The hāʾ suffix appended to a verb represents a masculine object (e.g. يَقْرَأُهُ, yaqraʾuhu, 'he reads it').

The feminine form of this construction is in both cases ـهَا -hā.

In Nastaʿlīq the letter has a variant, gol he, with its own particular shapes. As Urdu and other languages of Pakistan are usually written in Nastaʿlīq, they normally employ this variant, which is given an independent code point (U+06C1) for compatibility:

Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial
Naskh glyph form:
(Help)
ہ ـہ ـہـ ہـ
Nastaʿlīq glyph form: ہ ــــہ ــــہــــ ہــــ

For aspiration and breathy voice Urdu and other languages of Pakistan use the medial (in Nastaliq script) or initial (in Naskh script) form of hāʾ, called in Urdu do cashmī he ('two-eyed he'):

Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial
Naskh glyph form:
(Help)
ھ ـھ ـھـ ھـ
Nastaʿlīq glyph form: ھ ــــھ ــــھــــ ھــــ

Many Turkic languages of Central Asia like Uyghur as well as Kurdish use the modification of the letter for front vowels /æ/ or /ɛ/. This has its own code point (U+06D5). To distinguish it from Arabic hāʾ /h/ the letter lacks its initial and medial forms: [ـ]

Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial
Glyph form:
(Help)
ە ـە ـە ە

Hebrew Hei[edit]

Orthographic variants
Various print fonts Cursive
Hebrew
Rashi
script
Serif Sans-serif Monospaced
ה ה ה Hebrew letter He handwriting.svg Hebrew letter He Rashi.png

Hebrew spelling: הֵא

Pronunciation[edit]

In modern Hebrew, the letter represents a voiced glottal fricative /ɦ/, and may also be dropped, although this pronunciation is seen as substandard.

Also, in many variant Hebrew pronunciations the letter may represent a glottal stop. In word-final position, Hei is used to indicate an a-vowel, usually that of qamatzָ ), and in this sense functions like Aleph, Vav, and Yud as a mater lectionis, indicating the presence of a long vowel.

Hei, along with Aleph, Ayin, Reish, and Khet, cannot receive a dagesh. Nonetheless, it does receive a marking identical to the dagesh, to form Hei-mappiq (הּ). Although indistinguishable for most modern speakers or readers of Hebrew, the mapiq is placed in a word-final Hei to indicate that the letter is not merely a mater lectionis but the consonant should be aspirated in that position. It is generally used in Hebrew to indicate the third-person feminine singular genitive marker. Today, such a pronunciation only occurs in religious contexts and even then often only by careful readers of the scriptures.

Significance of Hei[edit]

In gematria, Hei symbolizes the number five, and when used at the beginning of Hebrew years, it means 5000 (i.e. התשנ״ד in numbers would be the date 5754).

Attached to words, Hei may have three possible meanings:

  • A preposition meaning the definite article "the", or the relative pronouns "that", or "who" (as in "a boy who reads"). For example, yeled, a boy; hayeled, the boy.
  • A prefix indicating that the sentence is a question. (For example, Yadata, You knew; Hayadata?, Did you know?)
  • A suffix after place names indicating movement towards the given noun. (For example, Yerushalayim, Jerusalem; Yerushalaymah, towards Jerusalem.)

In modern Hebrew the frequency of the usage of he, out of all the letters, is 8.18%.

Hei, representing five in gematria, is often found on amulets, symbolizing the five fingers of a hand, a very common talismanic symbol.

In Judaism[edit]

Hei is often used to represent the name of God as an abbreviation for Hashem, which means The Name and is a way of saying God without actually saying the name of God. In print, Hashem is usually written as Hei with a geresh: ה׳.

Syriac Heh[edit]

Heh
Syriac Eastern he.svg Madnḫaya Heh
Syriac Serta he.svg Serṭo Heh
Syriac Estrangela he.svg Esṭrangela Heh

Syriac letter shapes Heh.PNG

In the Syriac alphabet, the fifth letter is ܗ — Heh (ܗܹܐ). It is pronounced as an [h]. At the end of a word with a point above it, it represents the third-person feminine singular suffix. Without the point, it stands for the masculine equivalent. Standing alone with a horizontal line above it, it is the abbreviation for either hānoh (ܗܵܢܘܿ), meaning 'this is' or 'that is', or halelûya (ܗܵܠܹܠܘܼܝܵܐ). As a numeral, He represents the number five.

Character encodings[edit]

Character ה ه ܗ
Unicode name HEBREW LETTER HE ARABIC LETTER HEH SYRIAC LETTER HE SAMARITAN LETTER IY
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 1492 U+05D4 1607 U+0647 1815 U+0717 2052 U+0804
UTF-8 215 148 D7 94 217 135 D9 87 220 151 DC 97 224 160 132 E0 A0 84
Numeric character reference ה ה ه ه ܗ ܗ ࠄ ࠄ
Character 𐎅 𐡄 𐤄
Unicode name UGARITIC LETTER HO IMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER HE PHOENICIAN LETTER HE
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 66437 U+10385 67652 U+10844 67844 U+10904
UTF-8 240 144 142 133 F0 90 8E 85 240 144 161 132 F0 90 A1 84 240 144 164 132 F0 90 A4 84
UTF-16 55296 57221 D800 DF85 55298 56388 D802 DC44 55298 56580 D802 DD04
Numeric character reference 𐎅 𐎅 𐡄 𐡄 𐤄 𐤄

External links[edit]