He (letter)

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He (letter)

He is the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician

Phoenician alphabet

The Phoenician alphabet is a continuation of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, by convention taken to originate around 1050 BC. It was used for the writing of Phoenician language, a Northern Semitic languages language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia....
, Aramaic

Aramaic alphabet

The Aramaic alphabet has been called an abjad--that is, a consonantal alphabet -- used for writing Aramaic language. It is adapted from the Phoenician alphabet, and became distinctive from it by the eighth century BCE....
, Hebrew

Hebrew alphabet

The Hebrew alphabet consists of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew language. Five of these letters have a different form when appearing as the last letter in a word....
, Syriac

Syriac alphabet

The Syriac alphabet is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language from around the 2nd century BC. It is one of the Semitic languages abjads directly descending from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic alphabet, and Hebrew alphabet alphabets....
and Arabic

Arabic alphabet

The Arabic alphabet is the writing system used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic language, Persian language, and Urdu language....
. Its sound value is a voiceless glottal fricative

Voiceless glottal fricative

Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th century BC or early 8th century BCE....
Epsilon

Epsilon

Epsilon is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a close-mid front unrounded vowel /e/. It is also the primary letter used in Real Analysis....
, Etruscan , Latin

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
E

E is the fifth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled e , plural ees . The letter E is the most commonly used letter in the Czech language, Danish language, Dutch language, English language, French language, German language, Hungarian language, Latin language, Norwegian language, Spanish language...
and Cyrillic

Cyrillic alphabet

The Cyrillic alphabet is a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by five Slavic languages national languages as well as non-Slavic . It is also used by many other languages of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Siberia and other languages in the past....
Ye

Ye (Cyrillic)

Ye, or E , is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. It looks exactly like the Latin letter E. In Bulgarian language, Macedonian language, Serbian language, and Ukrainian language, it is called E, and represents the vowel or ....
. He, like all Phoenician letters, represented a consonant

Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx....
, but the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic equivalents have all come to represent vowel

Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis....
sounds.

roto-West Semitic there were still three voiceless fricatives, uvular glottal and pharyngeal .

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Encyclopedia

He is the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician

Phoenician alphabet

Aramaic alphabet

Hebrew alphabet

The Hebrew alphabet consists of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew language. Five of these letters have a different form when appearing as the last letter in a word....
, Syriac

Syriac alphabet

Arabic alphabet

Voiceless glottal fricative

Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th century BC or early 8th century BCE....
Epsilon

Epsilon

Epsilon is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a close-mid front unrounded vowel /e/. It is also the primary letter used in Real Analysis....
, Etruscan , Latin

Latin alphabet

Cyrillic alphabet

Ye (Cyrillic)

Consonant

Vowel

Origins

In Proto-West 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 V28 "thread", A28 hillul "jubilation", compare South Arabian

South Arabian alphabet

The ancient South Arabian alphabet branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in about the 9th century BC. It was used for writing the Yemeni Old South Arabic dialects of the Sabaean language, Qatabanian, Hadrami , Minaean language, Himyarite language, and proto-Ge'ez language in D?mt....

, Ge'ez

Ge'ez alphabet

Ge'ez , also called Ethiopic, is an abugida script that was originally developed to write Ge'ez language, a Semitic languages. In communities that use it, such as the Amharic language and Tigrinya language, the script is called , which means "script" or "alphabet"....
?, ?, ?, and O6 "court". In the Proto-Canaanite alphabet

Proto-Canaanite alphabet

The Proto-Canaanite alphabet is a consonantal alphabet of twenty-two Acrophony glyphs, found in Levantine texts of the Late Bronze Age , by convention taken to last until a cut-off date of 1050 BC, after which it is called Phoenician alphabet....
, and are merged into Heth

Heth (letter)

or is the reconstructed name of the eighth letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended Semitic alphabets as Phoenician alphabet , Syriac alphabet , Hebrew alphabet chet , Arabic alphabet , and Tifinagh ....
"fence", while is replaced by He "window".

Hebrew Hei

Orthographic Orthography The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Orthography is derived from Greek language ????? orth?s and ???fe?? gr?phein .... variants
Various Print Fonts			Cursive Hebrew	Rashi Script Rashi script Rashi script is a semi-Hebrew cursive typeface for the Hebrew alphabet, in which Rashi#Works are printed both in the Talmud and Tanakh . This does not mean that Rashi himself used such a script: the typeface is based on a 15th century Sephardi Jews semi-cursive hand and was called by the Ashkenazic Rishonim - the Hachmei Provence script....
Serif	Sans-serif Sans-serif In typography, a sans-serif or sans serif typeface is one that does not have the small features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning "without"....	Monospaced	Cursive Hebrew
?	?	?

Pronunciation

In modern Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
, the letter represents a voiceless glottal fricative

Voiceless glottal fricative

The voiceless glottal transition, commonly called a "Fricative consonant", is a type of sound used in some Speech communication languages which often behaves like a consonant, but sometimes behaves more like a vowel, or is indeterminate in its behavior....
. 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, He is used to indicate an a-vowel, usually that of qamatz (? ), and in this sense functions like Aleph

Aleph

* Aleph or Alef is the first letter of the Semitic abjads descended from Proto-Canaanite alphabet, Arabic alphabet, Phoenician alphabet, Hebrew alphabet, Syriac alphabet....
, Vav

Vav

VAV as a three-letter abbreviation may refer to* A variable air volume device, used in HVAC systems to control the flow of air* VaV Verbs and Adverbs - A method of controlling a robot through its state space...
and Yud

Yodh

Yodh is the tenth letter of many Semitic History of the alphabet, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language Yud , Syriac alphabet and Arabic alphabet ....
as a mater lectionis

Mater lectionis

In the spelling of Hebrew language and some other Semitic languages, matres lectionis , refers to the use of certain consonants to indicate a vowel....
, indicating the presence of a long vowel.

Hei, along with Aleph, Ayin

Ayin

' or ' is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic language, Hebrew language and Arabic alphabet ....
, Resh

Resh

Resh is the twentieth letter of many Semitic History of the alphabet, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language and Arabic alphabet ....
, and Heth

Heth (letter)

Dagesh

The dagesh is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It was added to the Hebrew language orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud ....
. Nonetheless, it does receive a marking identical to the dagesh, to form Hei-mappiq

Mappiq

The mappiq is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It is part of the Masoretes' system of niqqud , and was added to Hebrew language orthography at the same time....
. 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 that 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 then often only by careful readers of the scriptures.

Significance of Hei

In gematria

Gematria

Gematria or gimatria is a system of assigning number to an alphabet. The word "gematria" is generally held to derive from Greek geometria, "geometry", which was used a translation of gema?riya....
, Hei symbolizes the number five, and when used at the beginning of Hebrew years

Hebrew calendar

The Hebrew calendar or Jewish calendar is a lunisolar calendar used by Jews, now predominantly for religious purposes. It is used to reckon the Jewish New Year and dates for Jewish holidays, and also to determine appropriate Torah reading of Torah portions, Yahrzeits , and daily Psalm reading, among many ceremonial uses....
, it means 5000 (i.e. ?????? in numbers

Arabic numerals

The 'arabic numerals', or 'Hindu numerals' are the ten digits , which?along with Decimal Number System by which a sequence was read as a number?were originally defined by Indian mathematics, later modified and transferred to North African Islamic mathematics and transmitted to Europe in the Middle Ages, whence they spread around the wo...
would be the date

Calendar date

A date in a calendar is a reference to a particular day represented within a calendar system. The calendar date allows the specific day to be identified....
5754).

Attached to words, Hei may have three possible meanings:

A preposition meaning "the", "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

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and its List of Israeli cities in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if Positions on Jerusalem East Jerusalem is included....
, Yerushalaymah - towards Jerusalem.)

Hei, representing five in gematria, is often found on amulets, symbolizing the five fingers of a hand, a very common talismanic symbol.

In Judaism
Hei is often used to represent the name of God, as He stands for Hashem
Names of God in Judaism

In Judaism, the name of God is more than a distinguishing title. It represents the Jewish conception of the divine nature, and of the relation of God to the Jewish people....
, which means The Name and is a way of saying 'God' without actually saying the name of God. In print, Hashem is usually written as Hei with a chupchik (apostrophe): '?.

At the seder
Passover Seder

The Passover Seder Meal is a Jewish ritual feast held on the first and the second nights of the Jewish holiday of Passover . For Reform Jews and in Israel, the Seder is held only on the first night....
, during Yachatz
Passover Seder

The Passover Seder Meal is a Jewish ritual feast held on the first and the second nights of the Jewish holiday of Passover . For Reform Jews and in Israel, the Seder is held only on the first night....
there is a tradition to break the matzah
Matzo

Matza , in Ashkenazi Hebrew matzo or matzoh, and, in Yiddish language, matze) is a cracker-like flatbread made of white plain flour and water....
into the shape of the letter Hei.

Syriac He
In the Syriac alphabet
Syriac alphabet

The Syriac alphabet is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language from around the 2nd century BC. It is one of the Semitic languages abjads directly descending from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic alphabet, and Hebrew alphabet alphabets....
, the fifth letter is — He . It is pronounced as a [h
Voiceless glottal fricative

The voiceless glottal transition, commonly called a "Fricative consonant", is a type of sound used in some Speech communication languages which often behaves like a consonant, but sometimes behaves more like a vowel, or is indeterminate in its behavior....
]. At the end of a word with a point above it, it represents the third-person
Grammatical person

Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deixis reference to a participant in an event, such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns....
feminine
Grammatical gender

In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
singular
Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
suffix
Suffix

In grammar, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the grammatical conjugation of verbs....
. Without the point, it stands for the masculine equivalent. Standing alone with a horizontal line above it, it is the abbreviation
Abbreviation

An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase. Usually, but not always, it consists of a letter or group of letters taken from the word or phrase....
for either hanau , meaning 'this is' or 'that is', or halelûya

Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Halleluyah, or Alleluia, is a transliteration of the Hebrew language word meaning "praise Yah ". It is found mainly in the book of Psalms and has a similar pronunciation in many, but not all, languages....
. As a numeral, He represents the number five.

Arabic ha?
The letter is named ha?, and is written is several ways depending on its position in the word:

Ha? is used as a suffix (with the harakat

Harakat

The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, including , consonant pointing, and , supplementary diacritics. The latter include the , vowel marks....
dictated by ?I?rab) indicating possession
Possession (linguistics)

Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possession the referent of the other....
, indicating that the noun marked with the suffix belongs to a specific masculine
Grammatical gender

In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
possessor; for example, ???? kitab ("book") becomes ????? kitabuhu ("his book") with the addition of final ha?; the possessor is implied in the suffix. A longer example, ?? ???? ?????, (huwa yaqra'u kitabahu, "he reads his book") more clearly indicates the possessor.

The ha? suffix appended to a verb represents a masculine object
Object (grammar)

An object in grammar is a sentence element and part of the sentence Predicate . It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb....
(e.g. ?????, yaqra?uhu, "he reads it").

The feminine form of this construction is in both cases ??? -ha.