H The eighth symbol in the Phoenician alphabet, as in its
descendants, has altered less in the course of ages than
most alphabetic symbols. From the beginning of
Phoenician records it has consisted of two uprights
connected by transverse bars, at first either two or three in
number. The uprights are rarely perpendicular and the cross
bars are not so precisely arranged as they are in early Greek and
Latin inscriptions. In these the symbol takes the form of two
rectangles 
out of which the ordinary H develops by the
omission of the cross bars at top and bottom. It is very exceptional
for this letter to have more than three cross bars, though
as many as five are occasionally found in N.W. Greece. Within
the same inscription the appearance of the letter often varies
considerably as regards the space between and the length of
the uprights. When only one bar is found it regularly crosses
the uprights about the middle. In a few cases the rectangle
is closed at top and bottom but has no middle cross bar ▯.
The Phoenician name for the letter was Heth (Hēt). According
to Semitic scholars it had two values, (1) a glottal spirant, a very
strong h, (2) an unvoiced velar spirant like the German ch in ach.
The Greeks borrowed it with the value of the ordinary aspirate
and with the name ἧτα. Very early in their history, however,
most of the Greeks of Asia Minor lost the aspirate altogether,
and having then no further use for the symbol with this value
they adopted it to represent the long e-sound, which was not
originally distinguished by a different symbol from the short
sound (see E). With this value its name has always been ἧτα
in Greek. The alphabet of the Asiatic Greeks was gradually
adopted elsewhere. In official documents at Athens H represented
the rough breathing or aspirate ʽ till 403 B.C.; henceforth
it was used for η. The Western Greeks, however, from whom the
Romans obtained their alphabet, retained their aspirate longer
than those of Asia Minor, and hence the symbol came to the
Romans with the value not of a long vowel but of the aspirate,
which it still preserves. The Greek aspirate was itself the first
or left-hand half of this letter ├, while the smooth breathing ’
was the right-hand portion ┤. At Tarentum ├ is found for
H in inscriptions. The Roman aspirate was, however, a very
slight sound which in some words where it was etymologically
correct disappeared at an early date. Thus the cognate words
of kindred languages show that the Lat. anser “goose” ought
to begin with h, but nowhere is it so found. In none of the
Romance languages is there any trace of initial or medial h,
which shows that vulgar Latin had ceased to have the aspirate
by 240 B.C. The Roman grammarians were guided to its
presence by the Sabine forms where f occurred; as the Sabines
said fasena (sand), it was recognised that the Roman form ought
to be harena, and so for haedus (goat), hordeum (barley), &c.
Between vowels h was lost very early, for ne-hemo (no man) is
throughout the literature nēmo, bi-himus (two winters old)
bīmus. In the Ciceronian age greater attention was paid to
reproducing the Greek aspirates in borrowed words, and this
led to absurd mistakes in Latin words, mistakes which were
satirized by Catullus in his epigram (84) upon Arrius, who said
chommoda for commoda and hinsidias for insidias. In Umbrian
h was often lost, and also used without etymological value to
mark length, as in comohota (= Lat. commota), a practice to
which there are some doubtful parallels in Latin.
In English the history of h is very similar to that in Latin. While the parts above the glottis are in position to produce a vowel, an aspirate is produced without vibration of the vocal chords, sometimes, like the pronunciation of Arrius, with considerable effort as a reaction against the tendency to “drop the h’s.” Though h survives in Scotland, Ireland and America as well as in the speech of cultivated persons, the sound in most of the vulgar dialects is entirely lost. Where it is not ordinarily lost, it disappears in unaccented syllables, as “Give it ’im” and the like. Where it is lost, conscious attempts to restore it on the part of uneducated speakers lead to absurd misplacements of h and to its restoration in Romance words when it never was pronounced, as humble (now recognized as standard English), humour and even honour. (P. Gi.)