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He is the fifthletter of theSemitic abjads, includingPhoenicianhē 𐤄,Hebrewhēה‎,Aramaichē 𐡄,Syriachē ܗ, andArabichāʾه‎. It is also related to theAncient North Arabian 𐪀‎‎‎,South Arabian𐩠, andGe'ezሀ. Its sound value is thevoiceless glottal fricative ([h]).

Theproto-Canaanite letter gave rise to theGreekEpsilon Ε ε,^[1]Etruscan 𐌄,LatinE,Ë andƐ, andCyrillicЕ,Ё,Є,Э, andҨ.He, like all Phoenician letters, represented aconsonant, but the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic equivalents have all come to representvowel sounds.

In Proto-Northwest Semitic there were still three voiceless fricatives: uvularḫ[χ], glottalh[h], and pharyngealḥ[ħ]. In theWadi el-Hol script, these appear to be expressed by derivatives of the following Egyptian hieroglyphs

ḫayt "thread",

hillul "jubilation", compareSouth Arabianh,ḥ,ḫ,Ge'ezሀ,ሐ,ኀ, and

ḥasir "court".^[2]

In thePhoenician alphabet,ḫayt andḥasir are merged intoHeth "fence", whilehillul is replaced byHe "window".

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

Hāʾ is used as a suffix (with theharakat dictated byʾIʿrab) indicatingpossession, indicating that the noun marked with the suffix belongs to a specificmasculine possessor; for example,كِتَابkitāb ("book") becomesكِتَابُهُkitābuhu ('his book') with the addition of finalhāʾ; 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 eraAH. The medial form ofhāʾ resembles either the number8 or the wings of abutterfly. The letterhāʾ, especially its isolated form is informally written as the initial form of the letter itself.

Thehāʾ suffix appended to a verb represents a masculineobject (e.g.يَقْرَأُهُ,yaqraʾuhu, 'he reads it').

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

InNastaʿlīq 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:

Foraspiration andbreathy voice Urdu and other languages of Pakistan use the medial (in Nastaliq script) or initial (in Naskh script) form ofhāʾ, called in Urdudo cashmī he ('two-eyed he'):

Several Turkic languages of Central Asia likeUyghur as well asKurdish also use this letter for fricative /h/.

Many Turkic languages of Central Asia like Uyghur as well asKurdish use the modification of the letter for front vowels /æ/ or /ɛ/. This has its own code point (U+06D5). To distinguish it from Arabichāʾ /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 Arabichāʾ, even in isolated and final positions. In Unicode,U+06BE ھARABIC LETTER HEH DOACHASHMEE is used for this purpose.

Example words in Uyghur includeشاھ (shah), a loanword from Persian, andسۈلھ (sülh), a loanword from Arabic.

Orthographic variants
Various print fonts			Cursive Hebrew	Rashi script
Serif	Sans-serif	Monospaced
ה	ה	ה

Hebrew spelling:הֵא‎

Inmodern Hebrew, the letter represents avoiceless glottal fricative/h/, 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 often used to indicate ana-vowel, usually that ofqamatz ( ָ‎ ), and in this sense functions likeAleph,Vav, andYud as amater lectionis, indicating the presence of a long vowel. However, it may also be used to indicate the sounds /e/ or /o/, as inעוֹשֶׂה‎ (/ose/, 'makes') orפֹּה‎ (/po/, 'here').

Hei, along withAleph,Ayin,Reish, andKhet, cannot receive adagesh. Nonetheless, it does receive a marking identical to the dagesh, to formHei-mappiq (הּ‎). Although indistinguishable for most modern speakers or readers of Hebrew, the mapiq is placed in a word-finalHei 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.

Ingematria,He symbolizes the number five, and when used at the beginning ofHebrew years, it means 5000 (i.e.התשנ״ד innumbers would be thedate 5754).

Attached to words,He may have three possible meanings:

• Apreposition meaning the definite article "the", or the relative pronouns 'that', or 'who' (as in 'a boywho 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 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.

He is often used to represent the name of God as an abbreviation forHashem, which meansThe Name and is a way of sayingGod without actually saying the name of God (YHWH). In print, Hashem is usually written asHei with ageresh:ה׳‎.

Heh
Madnḫaya Heh
Serṭo Heh
Esṭrangela Heh

In theSyriac alphabet, the fifth letter isܗ — Heh (ܗܹܐ). It is pronounced as an [h]. At the end of a word with a point above it, it represents thethird-personfemininesingularsuffix. Without the point, it stands for the masculine equivalent. Standing alone with a horizontal line above it, it is theabbreviation for eitherhānoh (ܗܵܢܘܿ), meaning 'this is' or 'that is', orhalelûya (ܗܵܠܹܠܘܼܝܵܐ). As a numeral, he represents the letter 300000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

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