H-dropping oraitch-dropping is thedeletion of thevoiceless glottal fricative or "H-sound",[h]. The phenomenon is common in manydialects ofEnglish, and is also found in certain other languages, either as a purely historical development or as a contemporary difference between dialects. Although common in most regions ofEngland and in some other English-speaking countries, and linguistically speaking a neutral evolution in languages, H-dropping is oftenstigmatized as a sign of careless or uneducated speech, due to its strong association with the lower class.

The reverse phenomenon,H-insertion orH-adding, is found in certain situations, sometimes as anallophone orhypercorrection by H-dropping speakers, and sometimes as aspelling pronunciation or out of perceivedetymological correctness. A particular example of this is the spread of 'haitch' for 'aitch'.

InOld English phonology, the sounds[h],[x], and[ç] (described respectively asglottal,velar andpalatal voiceless fricatives) are taken to beallophones of a singlephoneme/h/. This phoneme occurred at the start of syllables, alone orclustered with an approximant, and in coda position. The[h] sound appeared in most onsets (except those with an/h/ and/w/ cluster, which had[x]) and the other two allophones insyllable codas ([x] afterback vowels and[ç] afterfront vowels).

The instances of/h/ incoda position werelost during theMiddle English andEarly Modern English periods, although they are still reflected in the spelling of words such astaught (now pronounced liketaut) andweight (now pronounced in most accents likewait). Most of the initial clusters involving/h/ also disappeared (seeH-cluster reductions). As a result, in thestandard varieties ofModern English, the only position in which/h/ can occur is at the start of a syllable, either alone (as inhat,house,behind, etc.), in the cluster/hj/ (as inhuge), or (for a minority of speakers) in the cluster/hw/ (as inwhine if pronounceddifferently fromwine). The usual realizations of the latter two clusters are[ç] and[ʍ] (seeEnglish phonology).

The phenomenon of H-dropping considered as a feature of contemporary English is the omission, in certainaccents anddialects, of this syllable-initial/h/, either alone or in the cluster/hj/. (For the cluster/hw/ and its reduction, seePronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩.)

H-dropping, in certain accents and dialects ofModern English, causes words likeharm,heat,home andbehind to be pronouncedarm,eat,ome andbe-ind (though in some dialects an [h] may appear inbehind to prevent hiatus – see below).

Cases of H-dropping occur in all English dialects in theweak forms offunction words likehe,him,her,his,had, andhave. Thepronounit is a product of historical H-dropping – the olderhit survives as an emphatic form in a few dialects such asSouthern American English, and in theScots language.^[1] Because the/h/ of unstressedhave is usually dropped, the word is usually pronounced/əv/ in phrases likeshould have,would have, andcould have. These can be spelled out in informal writing as "should've", "would've", and "could've". Because/əv/ is also the weak form of the wordof, these words are often erroneously spelled asshould of,would of andcould of.^[2]

There is evidence of h-dropping in texts from the 13th century and later. It may originally have arisen through contact with theNorman language, where h-dropping also occurred.Puns which rely on the possible omission of the/h/ sound can be found in works byWilliam Shakespeare and in otherElizabethan era dramas. It is suggested that the phenomenon probably spread from the middle to the lower orders of society, first taking hold in urban centers. It started to becomestigmatized, being seen as a sign of poor education, in the 16th or 17th century.^[3][4]

H-dropping occurs (variably) in most of the dialects of theEnglish language in England andWelsh English, includingCockney,West Country English,West Midlands English (includingBrummie),East Midlands English, most ofnorthern England (includingYorkshire andLancashire), andCardiff English.^[6] It is not generally found inScottish English andIrish English. It is also typically absent in certain regions of England and Wales, includingNorthumberland,East Anglia and parts ofNorth andWest Wales.^[7]

H-dropping also occurs in someJamaican English, and perhaps in otherCaribbean English (including some ofThe Bahamas). It is not generally found inNorth American English, although it has been reported inNewfoundland (outside theAvalon Peninsula).^[8] However, dropping of /h/ from the cluster /hj/ (so thathuman is pronounced/'juːmən/) is found in some American dialects, as well as in parts of Ireland – seereduction of /hj/.

H-dropping, in the countries and regions in which it is prevalent, occurs mainly in working-class accents. Studies have shown it to be significantly more frequent in lower than in higher social groups. It is not a feature ofRP (theprestige accent of England), or even of "Near-RP", a variant of RP that includes some regional features.^[9] This does not always apply, however, to the dropping of /h/ in weak forms of words likehis andher.

H-dropping in English is widelystigmatized, being perceived as a sign of poor or uneducated speech, and discouraged by schoolteachers.John Wells writes that it seems to be "the single most powerful pronunciationshibboleth in England."^[10]

In fully H-dropping dialects, that is, in dialects without a phonemic/h/, the sound[h] may still occur but with uses other than distinguishing words. Anepenthetic[h] may be used to avoidhiatus, so that for examplethe egg is pronouncedthe hegg. It may also be used when any vowel-initial word is emphasized, so thathorse/ˈɔːs/ (assuming the dialect is also non-rhotic) andass/ˈæs/ may be pronounced[ˈˈhɔːs] and[ˈˈhæs] in emphatic utterances. That is,[h] has become anallophone of thezero onset in these dialects.

For many H-dropping speakers, however, a phonological/h/ appears to be present, even if it is not usually realized – that is, they know which words "should" have an/h/, and have a greater tendency to pronounce an [h] in those words than in other words beginning with a vowel. Insertion of [h] may occur as a means of emphasis, as noted above, and also as a response to the formality of a situation.^[11]Sandhi phenomena may also indicate a speaker's awareness of the presence of an/h/ – for example, some speakers might say "a edge" (rather than "an edge") fora hedge, and might omit thelinking R before an initial vowel resulting from a dropped H.

It is likely that the phonemic system of children in H-dropping areas lacks a /h/ entirely, but that social and educational pressures lead to the incorporation of an (inconsistently realized) /h/ into the system by the time of adulthood.^[12]

The opposite of H-dropping, calledH-insertion orH-adding, sometimes occurs as ahypercorrection in English accents that typically drop H. It is commonly noted in literature from lateVictorian times to the early 20th century that some lower-class people consistently droph in words that should have it, while addingh to words that should not have it. An example from the musicalMy Fair Lady is, "In'Artford,'Ereford, and'Ampshire,'urricanes 'ardlyhever 'appen".^[13] Another is inC. S. Lewis'sThe Magician's Nephew: "Three cheers for theHempress ofColney 'Atch". In practice, however, it would appear thath-adding is more of a stylistic prosodic effect, being found in highly emphasized words, regardless of whether those words are h-initial or vowel-initial in the standard language.

Some English words borrowed fromFrench may begin with the letter⟨h⟩ but not with the sound/h/. Examples includeheir, and, in many regional pronunciations,hour,hono(u)r andhonest. In some cases,spelling pronunciation has introduced the sound/h/ into such words, as inhumble,human,hotel and (for most speakers)historic. Spelling pronunciation has also added/h/ to theBritish English pronunciation ofherb,/hɜːb/, whileAmerican English retains the older pronunciation/ərb/.Etymology may also serve as a motivation for H-addition, as in the wordshorrible,habit andharmony: these were borrowed into Middle English from French without an/h/ (orrible, abit, armonie), but as all three derive from Latin words with an/h/, they would later acquired an/h/ in English as an etymological "correction".^[14] The name of the letter H itself, "aitch", is subject to H-insertion in some dialects, where it is pronounced "haitch". (InHiberno-English, "haitch" is frequent amongst Roman Catholics, consistent with their not being H-dropping dialects and distinguishing them from their Protestant neighbours.)^{[citation needed]} Various dialects ofNewfoundland English exhibit the same pattern.^[15]

The following is a list of some pairs of English words which may become homophones when H-dropping occurs. (To view the list, click "show".) See also thelist of H-dropping homophones in Wiktionary.

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Processes of H-dropping have occurred in various languages at certain times, and in some cases, they remain as distinguishing features between dialects, as in English. SomeDutch dialects, especially the southern ones, feature H-dropping. The dialects ofZeeland,West andEast Flanders, most ofAntwerp andFlemish Brabant, and the west ofNorth Brabant have lost /h/ as a phonemic consonant but use [h] to avoid hiatus and to signal emphasis, much as in the H-dropping dialects of English.^[16] H-dropping is also found in someNorth Germanic languages, for instanceElfdalian and the dialect ofRoslagen, where it is found already inOld East Norse. Also theLow Saxon speaking area aroundZwolle,Kampen,Steenwijk,Meppel andHoogeveen have h-dropping, the former island ofUrk has it too as do some regions inGroningen.

When dealing with Greek, this process is calledpsilosis. The phoneme/h/ inAncient Greek ofClassical Athens, occurring predominantly at the beginnings of words and originally written with the letter H and later as arough breathing, had been lost by that period in mostIonic dialects and from all Greek dialects during the lateHellenistic/Roman era. Hence it not a phoneme ofModern Greek being approximated in foreign loanwords by/x/ or/ç/ (or/∅/).

The phoneme/h/ was lost inVulgar Latin, the ancestor of the modernRomance languages. Already in the Imperial period, there is attested evidence for early h-loss.French,Spanish, andRomanian acquired a new initial/h/ in medieval times, but they were later lost in the first two languages in a "second round" of H-dropping. Some varieties of Spanish have yet again acquired[h] from/x/ (from earlierretraction of/ʃ/ and/ʒ/), which as of now is stable.Brazilian Portuguese acquired[h] from/ʁ/ which is now the stable form in most of the country, though it has other allophones.

It is hypothesized in thelaryngeal theory that the loss of[h] or similar sounds played a role in the early development of theIndo-European languages.

InMaltese,/h/ existed as a phoneme until the 19th century. It was then lost in most positions, sometimes lengthening the adjacent vowel. Chiefly word-finally it was merged with/ħ/. The latter phoneme, in turn, may now be pronounced[h] by some speakers, chiefly in the syllable onset.

Modern Hebrew is in the process of losing/h/; the phoneme is either replaced by/ʔ/ (word-initially) or entirely absent (in all other positions) in the speech of contemporary young speakers.

InTagalog,/h/ is sometimes elided into an immediately succeeding vowel, such ashuwag from/huˈwaɡ/ to/ˈwaɡ/ andsabihin from/saˈbihin/ to/saˈbin/.

Many dialects ofPersian spoken inAfghanistan (i.e.Dari) do not realize the phoneme/h/, except in high-prestige literary words or in hyper formal speech. The deletion of the phoneme/h/ may cause a preceding short vowel to be reinterpreted as a long vowel, likely due to phonological rules in Dari prohibiting short vowels and long vowels from being equal in length.^[17] For example,قهر (qahr/qahɾ/, "anger") is often realized asqār/qɑːɾ/ (as if it was written likeقار), andفهمیدن (fahmīdan/fahmiːdan/, to understand) is often realized asفامیدن (fāmīdan /fɑːmiːdan/). Between vowels, the phoneme/h/ may be replaced by a glide (/j/ or/w/) resulting in words likeخواهش (x(w)āhiš/xɑːhɪʃ/, "I want") being realized asخایش (xāyš/xɑːjʃ/) or, in dialects that no longer distinguish āy and ay, this may be further reduced toxayš/xajʃ/ (as if speltخیش).

The modernJavanese language typically does not have initial and intervocalic/h/ in its native words, except between the same vowels. For instance, in modern Javanese, the word for "rain" isudan, from Old Javanesehudan, which ultimately comes from Proto-Austronesian*quzaN. The letter "ꦲ" in traditional Javanese script, which had the value/ha/ in Old Javanese is now used in most cases to represent/a/ and/ɔ/ in its base form. In modern Javanese, initial and intervocalic/h/ appears only in loanwords from Indonesian and English. Since the Javanese people have been exposed to Dutch for far longer than they are with Indonesian or standard literary Malay (which only started somewhere after 1900 and amplified after 1945, excludingSurinamese Javanese), many of the words borrowed from Dutch have also lost the phoneme, such asandhuk/aɳˈɖ̥(ʰ)ʊʔ/ "towel" from Dutchhanddoek.

• Phonological history of English
• Phonological history of English consonants
• Aspirated h

• Phonology
• English phonology
• Sound changes

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