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He is the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician,
Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
,
Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated i ...
, Syriac, and
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
. Its sound value is the
voiceless glottal fricative The voiceless glottal fricative, sometimes called voiceless glottal transition, and sometimes called the aspirate, is a type of sound used in some spoken languages that patterns like a fricative or approximant consonant '' phonologically'', bu ...
(). The proto-Canaanite letter gave rise to the Greek
Epsilon Epsilon (, ; uppercase , lowercase or lunate ; el, έψιλον) is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a mid front unrounded vowel or . In the system of Greek numerals it also has the value five. It was d ...
Ε ε, Etruscan 𐌄,
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
E, Ë and Ɛ, and
Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic 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 co ...
Е, Ё, Є, Э, and Ҩ. ''He'', like all Phoenician letters, represented a
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced w ...
, but the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic equivalents have all come to represent
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...
sounds.


Origins

In Proto- Northwest Semitic there were still three voiceless fricatives: uvular , glottal , and pharyngeal . In the Wadi el-Hol script, these appear to be expressed by derivatives of the following Egyptian hieroglyphs V28' " thread", A28 ' "
jubilation Jubilation may refer to: * Jubilation!, a parade at Tokyo Disneyland * ''Jubilation'' (The Band album), 1998 * ''Jubilation'' (Randy Johnston album), 1994 * ''Jubilation'' (The Rowans album), 1977 * ''Jubilation'', a musical composition by Richa ...
", compare South Arabian , , , Ge'ez , , , and O6 ' "
court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in acco ...
". In the
Phoenician alphabet The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization. The Phoenician al ...
, ' and ' are merged into Heth "fence", while ' is replaced by ''He'' "
window A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof, or vehicle that allows the exchange of light and may also allow the passage of sound and sometimes air. Modern windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent mat ...
".


Arabic hāʾ

The letter is named '. It is written in several ways depending on its position in the word: ' is used as a suffix (with the dictated by ') indicating possession, indicating that the noun marked with the suffix belongs to a specific
masculine Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some behaviors ...
possessor; for example, ' ("book") becomes ' ('his book') with the addition of final '; the possessor is implied in the suffix. A longer example, , (, "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 ' suffix appended to a verb represents a masculine
object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...
(e.g. , ', 'he reads it'). The feminine form of this construction is in both cases '. In
Nastaʿlīq ''Nastaliq'' (; fa, , ), also romanized as ''Nastaʿlīq'', is one of the main calligraphic hands used to write the Perso-Arabic script in the Persian and Urdu languages, often used also for Ottoman Turkish poetry, rarely for Arabic. ''Na ...
the letter has a variant,
gol he Gol may refer to: Places * * Gol, Gilan, a village in Gilan Province, Iran * Gol, South Khorasan, a village in South Khorasan Province, Iran * Gol, Bukan, a village in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Gol, Chaldoran, a village in West Azerbaij ...
, 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: For aspiration and
breathy voice Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like ...
Urdu and other languages of Pakistan use the medial (in Nastaliq script) or initial (in Naskh script) form of ''hāʾ'', called in Urdu ('two-eyed he'): Several Turkic languages of Central Asia like Uyghur as well as Kurdish also use this letter for fricative //.


Arabic ae

Many Turkic languages of Central Asia like Uyghur as well as Kurdish use the modification of the letter for front vowels // or //. This has its own code point (U+06D5). To distinguish it from Arabic ''hāʾ'' /h/ the letter lacks its initial and medial forms: By contrast, the letter used for /h/, appearing in loanwords, uses only the initial and medial forms of the Arabic ''hāʾ'', even in isolated and final positions. In Unicode, is used for this purpose. Example words in Uyghur include (), a loanword from Persian, and (), a loanword from Arabic.


Hebrew Hei

Hebrew spelling:


Pronunciation

In
modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...
, the letter represents a
voiceless glottal fricative The voiceless glottal fricative, sometimes called voiceless glottal transition, and sometimes called the aspirate, is a type of sound used in some spoken languages that patterns like a fricative or approximant consonant '' phonologically'', bu ...
, 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
qamatz Kamatz or qamatz ( he, label= Modern Hebrew, קָמָץ, ; alternatively ) is a Hebrew niqqud ( vowel) sign represented by two perpendicular lines (looking like an uppercase T) underneath a letter. In modern Hebrew, it usually indicates the ...
 ), and in this sense functions like
Aleph Aleph (or alef or alif, transliterated ʾ) is the first letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician , Hebrew , Aramaic , Syriac , Arabic ʾ and North Arabian 𐪑. It also appears as South Arabian 𐩱 and Ge'ez . These lett ...
, Vav, and Yud as a
mater lectionis ''Matres lectionis'' (from Latin "mothers of reading", singular form: ''mater lectionis'', from he, אֵם קְרִיאָה ) are consonants that are used to indicate a vowel, primarily in the writing down of Semitic languages such as Arabic, ...
, indicating the presence of a long vowel. ''Hei'', along with
Aleph Aleph (or alef or alif, transliterated ʾ) is the first letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician , Hebrew , Aramaic , Syriac , Arabic ʾ and North Arabian 𐪑. It also appears as South Arabian 𐩱 and Ge'ez . These lett ...
, Ayin, Reish, and
Khet KHET (channel 11), branded as PBS Hawai'i, is a PBS member television station in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, serving the Hawaiian Islands. Owned by the Hawaii Public Television Foundation, the station maintains studios on Sand Island Access ...
, cannot receive a dagesh. Nonetheless, it does receive a marking identical to the dagesh, to form ''Hei- mappiq'' (). 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 He

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 Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
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 Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
; ''Yerushalaymah'', towards Jerusalem.) In modern Hebrew the frequency of the usage of hei, out of all the letters, is 8.18%. ''He'', representing five in gematria, is often found on amulets, symbolizing the five fingers of a hand, a very common talismanic symbol.


In Judaism

''He'' 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 (YHWH). In print, Hashem is usually written as ''Hei'' with a geresh: .


Syriac Heh

In the
Syriac alphabet The Syriac alphabet ( ) is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language since the 1st century AD. It is one of the Semitic languages, Semitic abjads descending from the Aramaic alphabet through the Palmyrene alphabet, and shares ...
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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'' (), meaning 'this is' or 'that is', or '' halelûya'' (). As a numeral, He represents the number five.


Character encodings


External links

{{Northwest Semitic abjad Phoenician alphabet Arabic letters Hebrew letters kk:ه tr:He (harf)