H (letter)

H is the eighth letter of the English alphabet. Its name is spelt 'aitch', as in 'he drops his aitches', referring to the habit of some speakers, notably cockneys, not to sound initial aspirated h, as in hòuse and héad (the accents show stress and pronunciation: see English phonemes).

Use in English

h between vowels is a breath outwards, English’s only aspirate. But it also combines with a number of consonants to form other consonants, and sometimes it is silent.

The aspirated h is most common initially: háppy, hôme, hélp, hínder, hurrây, héaven, héll, hŷpe. When not initial, it sometimes looks misleadingly like a combination with another consonant, as in adhêre and dishàrmony, but this is accidental and the d and h are sounded separately; and it is also found between vowels as in rehëarse, ahŏy, ahéad and ahém.

Silent h occurs initially in hónest, hónour, hóur time (= our we), héir fortune (= ãir breathe) and in their derivatives: hónourable, hòurly &c; and also in nìhilist (or nîhilist), exhåust, in the suffix -ham in names of towns: Béckenham, Péckham, Twíckenham, Tóttenham, in Jóhn (= the less common Jón). A silent h is also used to lengthen vowels, usually in interjections: àh! ôh! èh? or words from German: Kôhl, Kûhn, àùtobàhn (*òutobàn) and unstressed in Méndelssohn (*Méndəlsən) and unstressed finally in Sãrah, parîah and verándah - all ah as schwa. In vêhicle silent h separates the i from the preceding ê, making the í a syllable: *vê-í-kle – or as a schwa: *vêəkle. And in names like Côhen and Mêehan the h is not easily pronounced as such: *Côwən and *Mêeyən.

h combining with preceding letters: A mere breath when pronounced on its own, h is silent after vowels and before consonants and thus does not begin clusters; instead, it shows great versatility in combining with preceding letters (there are also more examples in the section on the preceding letter involved):

àh, with silent h, is used in interjections: àh! bàh! blàh blàh blàh! pàh! yàh bôo! In German words, it emphasises the long à sound: Màhler, Stàhl, Bràhms, àutobàhn (òwt-) and in Bahrèin the h can be pronounced.

ch as in choôse, bêach, chéck verify = BrE chéque money, chàr, cóckroach, chát, chêek, chín, côach. Very often it is preceded by a redundant t: ẁatch, wrétch, cátch, bátch, kétchup, ítching, wítch (= whích). But in some words taken from French, it is pronounced like sh: chìc, machìne, AmE moústáche BrE moustàche. Elsewhere, the h is redundant: ch as k: Bucharést (Bùka-), chŏrd, psychólogy schoôner - while in chémist, àrchive, schême it at least prevents the following e or i from making the c sound like s. And it has a completely un-English sound in Scottish words (as in German Bàch): lóch, Sássenach - though these are often, by non-Scots, pronounced with a final k sound.

dh represents the voiced th sound in Rìyadh. (I use it in respellings.)

èh is usually foreign, except for èh? (h silent).

gh is the sorry relic of a sound no longer pronounced (except in exclamations of disgust, úgh! yeùgh! - it is the sound of Scottish ch in lóch, which in Ireland is indeed spelt lóugh) or mutated into the sound of f and ph. See gh. Pronounced f: tróugh, cóugh, Góugh, enoúgh, toúgh, roúgh, sloúgh skin (cf. slòugh swamp, and the English town Slòugh, both *slòu). More often it is silent as in slòugh swamp - with quite a variety of preceding vowel sounds and spellings: ŏught, sŏught, bŏught, cåught, nåughty, Våughan, Våughn, dôugh, èight, nèigh, wèigh, slèigh ride (= slây murder), wèight heavy (= wâit time), frèight, heîght, bòugh, throûgh, thôugh, Búrrôughs, sîght, nîght, nîgh, and even -ough as schwa BrE bòrough, Scàrborough, and thòrough, in AmE bòrôugh, Scàrborôugh, and thòrôugh, rhyming with fúrrôw. fürlôugh has this pronunciation in British English also.

gh uniquely sounds like p in híccough (a variant spelling of híccup).

In other words gh merely represents a hard g, whether Germanic, ghôst, ghoûl, ghāstly or Italian, spaghétti (-tì); and h serves to distinguish dínghy boat (which can have hard g or silent g, but always the ng sound) from díngy dirty (soft g: *dínjy).

hh occurs accidentally in withhôld, withhéld and hítchhîke, where in each case the second h is aspirated as if beginning a new word.

ih occurs in nìhilist (or nîhilist) where the h is usually silent or has the consonantal y sound.

kh appears in words from Arabic, Persian, Urdu and so on. The pronunciation is the same as that of ch in lóch (a rasping in the back of the throat) - and thus many speakers do not distinguish it from k: Khàlid, Khàn, shèikh (or -k). But in Khmér (*Kəmãir) h is, uniquely, a vowel, schwa.

ôh! oôh! poôh! are interjections (also: Winnie the Poôh) and, from German, ôhm: silent h.

ph = f: nýmph, phrâse, phâse, Dáphnê, phoênix, grāph (but Stêphen = Stêven). rh = r: Rhôdes, rhôdium, rhodedéndron, rhêsus, rhêtoric. There are more examples in the section on r.

sh is the normal way of showing the very common sound spelt ch in machìne: shoòt, frésh, cásh, shêet, fâstish, Bangladésh, ásh, pólish, Pôlish, áshen, díshwasher, shùsh! sssssh!

th represents two sounds, one the voiced version of the other. Voiced th is used in certain functional, and therefore in many cases very common, words: thís, thát, thére, thén, thôugh, althôugh, thús, thérefore, thòu, the/thê article = thêe you, and in òther, mòther, fàther, bròther, rāther, lāther. Unvoiced th is not uncommon either, especially at the beginning and end of words: thínk, thŏught, throûgh, thòrough (*thúrrə), thrôw, móth, bôth, ẁrath (-ó-), fífth (*fíth - though some pronounce the second f), fílthy. but the h is redundant in Thaîland (*Tîland).

úh (h silent; or pronounced schwa) is used as in húh? úh? - same interrogative meaning as èh? - and (mostly AmE) úh-húh yes, and in other improvised interjections - otherwise it appears in German names as ûh: Kûhn.

wh = w (although some speakers pronounce it hw-): what, whére, why, whén, whéther (cf. wéather) sòmewhat, sòmewhere, anywhere (én-) nôwhere, whísky, whîte, Whítsun, wháck, whám.

zh has the sound of -si- in vision or -su- in léisure, which are the usual spellings. As zh it occurs only in words from Arabic, Russian and other languages: Brézhnev.

See also

• Letter (alphabet)
• Alphabet
• Writing system
• Orthography
• Written language
• Writing