Heta

The Heta is a temporarily unused letter of the Greek alphabet for the sound [ h]. Previously, it was the pre-classical name for the 7th letter Eta.

Origin

→ Ancient Greek phonology fricatives

The H symbol was first adopted as the letter Η Heta from the Phoenician alphabet and used for rough touch [h ]. This point there came also into the Latin alphabet, where it became the present-day H. As in the Ionic dialect of the [h ] sound ceased, the character Η was as Eta for the [ ε: ] use - sound. When, however, the Ionian alphabet was introduced in the regions, who spoke rough touch [h ] (especially in Attica ), lacked a sign of this. Therefore, the letter Η the left half of uppercase Η ( ├ ) was in some inscriptions centered halved vertically and for the aspirate [h ] at the beginning of a beginning end with vowel or R word used for the initial vowel of a word with vowel ( without touch ) the right half of the capital letter Η ( ┤ ). Later, during the Hellenistic and Byzantine times these developed the two characters Spiritus asper () and Spiritus lenis ().